Whether due to lax law enforcement or irresponsible parenting, or both, the fact is that way too many underage children illegally drive on Indonesia’s roads.
But a woman named Saleha Juliandi would like to see an end to that, and she thinks the best way to do that is to hold the parents responsible. Through Change.org, she started a petition asking President Joko Widodo and National Police Chief Tito Karnavian to create a new law which would jail parents who allow their underage children to drive.
Saleha wrote a story on her petition’s page about the mother of a 3-year-old boy who died after being hit by a motorcycle driven by an underage child. She wrote that cases like these are common and that child drivers often go unpunished as the law can’t fully incriminate juveniles (this is perhaps best illustrated by the case of popstar Ahmad Dhani’s 13-year-old son, who illegally drove a car and killed 7 people in a horrific accident but went completely unpunished, as did his father who gave him the sports car he was driving).
Saleha argues that if we want to see a decrease in underage driving in Indonesia, the parents who allow it to happen in the first place must be held accountable and must be jailed as a deterrent for others.
At the time of writing, more than 5,000 people have signed the petition. If you you believe that such a law would be the best way to combat underage driving, you can sign the petition right here.
