First major car accident in Indonesia

[Jaime C]

This evening we were headed to Jakarta on the tollway coming from Bandung, about 10km before the toll booth.

They were doing the one lane blocked off on the right hand lane, for people leaving Jakarta. A big cone had been knocked into the center of our lane, as my wife slowed to try and change lanes, a shuttle bus slammed into the back of our Nissan Grand Livina.

The rear window shattered, the whole back lift gate of the car has a huge 1/3 meter tall horizontal crease from their bumper about halfway up.

Thankfully everyone was wearing their seatbelt, and no passengers in the third row, as we had the seat folded down for our luggage.

The driver of the shuttlebus was blaming us, and even asking my wife for money. We got hit, at about 30-40kph, I’d guess.

A Jasamarga motorcycle cop stopped. He removed the cone from the road. After the cop heard we had insurance, the other driver was just let to drive off. I guess we could have gone to the police station.

I’ve got a sore neck, but no other apparent physical injuries at this time. Sure ruined a decent, no traffic trip from Bandung, though. My wife is really shaken up, as is to be expected.

 

[jstar]

That sucks. Luckily all of you are okay. It could be muscle ache tomorrow.

 

[lifelongexpat]

At least your both safe and sound. That's the main thing.

 

[dafluff]

Glad to hear everyone is ok.

 

[Anglian]

Good to hear you are all safe and sound

 

[Puspawarna]

Sorry to hear that, but so glad you are all okay. Did your luggage survive?

 

[steveandpenny]

Glad no serious injury but watch your neck. If it's more sore the next day you might want to wear a neck brace for a couple of days . I had a similar accident and had a sore neck. Being a manly man of course I ignored it . Neck was so sore for months . When I finally went to doc a week or so after he basically said I was fucked....if I wore a neck brace the frist few days would have been fine in a few days instead of a few months. Guess there are alot of muscles in the neck to hold that big head of mine.

 

[Jaime C]

Yes, so far we’re ok. Our 5 year old was riding in the front seat, because she wanted to be next to mom. She doesn’t really like seatbelts, but I always make sure she has it on.

 

[Daniel50]

I am glad to hear everyone is basically okay. We just missed a bad accident going to Bandung where someone, lost their life. They drove their small car into the back of some big solid piece of road equipment.

 

[Jamu]

Sorry to hear about the accident. My advice is to install cameras front and rear, connected to a 'black box' recording device. Not too expensive and eliminates the lies and blame game in case of accident.

 

[El_Goretto]

Sorry this happened to you. It's bad enough to be in an accident but it's absolutely infuriating to be blamed for it when it's obvious you weren't at fault.

I could maybe understand if it was a private driver but that was a shuttle bus, a commercial operation. It's absolutely unfair that they get to smash into you from the rear, blame you and get away with it.

I understand that you wouldn't want to go to the police station because that would be a pain. I just wished the cop did his job though.

 

[Bad_azz]

Sorry to see this JC. Glad no serious injuries. Hugs to Mrs JC.

 

[nosox]

Glad you're all ok

 

[Euc-]

Happy to hear that all is ok and its mostly material damage.

I always wonder how I would react when it's clearly the other persons' fault yet he/she demands money.. Hopefully I'll never have to find out as I doubt "pergi ke laut aja" would get me very far.

 

[Anglian]

In most countries you run into the back of someone, you are at fault, but here who knows, my mishap discribed in another when someone ran into the back of me, by popular vote of the kampung he was at fault.
At least your family are safe Jamie

 

[jstar]

Well, it will all depend on whether they see it as a manœuvre (then mrs. JC is at fault) or whether she had been on the 2nd lane 'long enough'. And of course the passengers of the shuttle were not questioned nor did they measure the tire imprint on the road to determine its speed.

 

[Bad_azz]

the logic here is the bigger vehicle is at fault- hope you know which company it was & the id number on the shuttle- and go to their offices.
Most likely the driver was very dozy, I had that the other week, where I had to keep chatting to him to stop him falling asleep, then got really pissy with him & made him pull into a rest area & drink coffee.
There is a lot of pressure on the drivers to do at least 2 trips there & back bdg-jkt each day & when these guys are fasting and not getting proper rest it is a disaster waiting to happen because they desperately need their wages (which aren't big at all) so take all the crap tlo keep their jobs.

 

[Balifrog]

In this kind of countries, sadly usually its your fault because in the first place if you hadn't come here the accident would'nt have happened.
Same in Thailand, in VN and I guess in plenty others....

 

[Jaime C]

Sorry to hear about the accident. My advice is to install cameras front and rear, connected to a 'black box' recording device. Not too expensive and eliminates the lies and blame game in case of accident.

We have a front mounted camera. Haven’t viewed the file yet.

 

[Jaime C]

Well, it will all depend on whether they see it as a manœuvre (then mrs. JC is at fault) or whether she had been on the 2nd lane 'long enough'. And of course the passengers of the shuttle were not questioned nor did they measure the tire imprint on the road to determine its speed.

She never changed lanes. She only slowed down considerably. We were in the middle lane of 3, but actually the high speed lane, as they had the right hand lane blocked off with the aforementioned cones for Mudik people leaving Jakarta.

This happened right before 6pm, so right at Mahgrib or so, time period.