Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Jockeys in Jakarta
Get a ride and get a job?
In Jakarta, Indonesia, thousands of car jockeys line the streets to leap into cars that will pay them under $1 to ride with them through the city's high occupancy lanes. In 2006, the rate was 10,000 rupiah, or a little more than a dollar.
Jockeys are usually poor citizens who dream of owning their own cars someday, but mostly want to help their family survive or pay for school. Mothers take their children with them on the streets until the children are about 10 years-old, and can navigate the city alone, and students work as jockeys between classes.
Jockeys enable drives to circumvent traffic through "three-in-one lanes," which run for 20km through Jakarta from 7-10am and 4-7pm. Drivers caught without enough passengers -- babies count -- are given tickets to appear in court where they are usually fined.
Female jockeys are sexually harassed, but many say that they are alert to flirtatious signals from drivers, and hints towards sex; the risk is worth the dollar in a country where half of the population's living expenses don't exceed $2 a day.
In an increasingly jobless nation like America, I am waiting for a car jockey revolution in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco. Surely the drivers would pay much more than a dollar, and the movement would fill the gap of the nation's absent stimulus package.
2006 Mail & Guardian article
2009 New York Times article
In Jakarta, Indonesia, thousands of car jockeys line the streets to leap into cars that will pay them under $1 to ride with them through the city's high occupancy lanes. In 2006, the rate was 10,000 rupiah, or a little more than a dollar.
Jockeys are usually poor citizens who dream of owning their own cars someday, but mostly want to help their family survive or pay for school. Mothers take their children with them on the streets until the children are about 10 years-old, and can navigate the city alone, and students work as jockeys between classes.
Jockeys enable drives to circumvent traffic through "three-in-one lanes," which run for 20km through Jakarta from 7-10am and 4-7pm. Drivers caught without enough passengers -- babies count -- are given tickets to appear in court where they are usually fined.
Female jockeys are sexually harassed, but many say that they are alert to flirtatious signals from drivers, and hints towards sex; the risk is worth the dollar in a country where half of the population's living expenses don't exceed $2 a day.
In an increasingly jobless nation like America, I am waiting for a car jockey revolution in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco. Surely the drivers would pay much more than a dollar, and the movement would fill the gap of the nation's absent stimulus package.
2006 Mail & Guardian article
2009 New York Times article
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