Truth that whole world must know!

That’s right, if you can drive well in Jakarta, you can drive anywhere else in the world. But the converse is NOT always true.

Picture a typical situation on a bright sunny day in Jakarta with you on the steering wheel of a manual-geared Toyota Kijang. You are on your way from Sudirman to a meeting point at Kebayoran, which is starting in 30 minutes. The traffic jam is at its worst because it’s the peak hour of lunchtime + the end of school hours + rush hour for meetings.

You know the fast lane is not always the best choice as the traffic in the slow lane usually slackens off after a major divergence. Thus aptly, you switch lanes from the slow to the fast lane and vice versa, with high skills and remarkable precision.

Your intuition knows exactly when to speed up and slow down. You overtake the cars ahead that you deem hindering your movement, without any alarm of endangering all other road users. Horn and front lights are appropriately used every time you see vehicles ahead are closing by or switching to your lane. 

Just before the notorious roundabout, the slow lane, the fast lane, and the busway (yes don’t forget the big brother) converges, making the most chaotic and disorganized traffic mankind has ever defined. Your room is increasingly narrowing as all vehicles try to get their way past the roundabout, creating more lines of vehicles than the road should accommodate. The Kopaja (public bus) next to your car is only at finger-length distance.

But you are not scared at all. Wonderfully, you manage to get your car to the fastest-moving line at the utmost right hand side while you are actually at the utmost left hand side line. Brilliant...

After passing the roundabout you go straight down towards Blok M. Your enemies this time are Metromini and Angkot (public mini-buses). For the sake of getting passengers, these vehicles believe that they have the rights to stop wherever and whenever they like.

You have ever wanted to snarl at them, but you know it is all in vain, because they think they are the rightful owner of roads in Jakarta. Period. Moreover, its big brother, Metromini, is reputable for making the most unexpected turns and maneuvers as they join your line.

Other than that, there is also the smallest brother, Bajai, which is insidiously mysterious. It could go right or left, anytime it wants without giving any signal. Only God knows when and where it is making those turns. We, human beings, can only pray it doesn’t happen right in front of you when you are caught unaware.

But you are a skillful driver. You breeze through them without losing any cool or temper or concentration.

Don’t forget the motorcycles. They are always in a massive horde. And they like to speed up, randomly. If they slam into your car, you are to blame. So you know you don’t want to waste your time with them. At any one random time, you could be in a situation where your car is surrounded by 4 motorcycles, on all 4 sides of your car; The one in the front doesn’t have a mirror. The one on your left has 3 persons on the seat. The one on your right has a fragile small boy clinging to his dad with feeble grip on his dad’s tummy. The one behind doesn’t have front lights. ALL of them do not wear helmets. Wrong decision and you are pretty much fucked, regardless who is blameworthy. But you are a virtuoso. You get yourself out of that situation with lovely maneuvers, without harming any of those 4 bikes.

When you think you are out of the shit hole, somebody jaywalks across the road. Unconcerned and unaware of your speeding car. In a split of a second, you make an accurate decision between accelerating and slowing down. You take a deep breath. The road is tapering. Without any intention to decrease your speed, you ride past that road with adorable certainty and confidence.

All of a sudden, from the front side of a parked bus at the side of the road, a ‘gerobak’ (cartwheel) emerges as it jolly moves across the street. Looking at the mirror, applying brake, but keeping eyes focused on the traveling cartwheel are all done in a simultaneous order, ensuring a smooth flow of the car.

Finally you have arrived at your destination. But it doesn’t give you a relief yet. You are just about to be tested on your ultimate driving proficiency. You have to park your car, on a parallel parking on an inclining slope, in between 2 luxurious cars owned by an ex-Indonesian army chief. Drains (or in Indonesia we call it 'selokan/ got') are on both sides of the narrow slopes.

Don’t forget, you drive a manual-geared vehicle. But again, and again, you succeed, because you drive really well in Jakarta, and you know no other drivers in the world can match your driving skills.