A few paragraphs on public servants’ misuse of public amenities.
Lately, the Indonesian social media space has been slowly revealing and opening up the lives of those in power. It just happened, a child of a person in charge of our tax system committing assault to his underaged girlfriend and now the once public yet lavish lives of the families of the people in power is being put under the spotlight. The money and the lifestyles are one thing, but there’s another thing in relation to these people that bugs me every day. Their use of roads.
It’s a small thing, yes. We see it often; government officials being escorted by police bikes and loud sirens; or convoys of military vehicles packed with personnel passing through opposing traffic to get to their bases quickly. But it’s getting onto me lately. It’s to the point that I get annoyed sitting in the back of a motorcycle on my 7km commute to campus in traffic waiting for that one car in the front to start moving, while I hear ear-splitting horns from police vehicles scream at my ears moving ever so quickly signaling that some ever-important official is passing through. Crossing road markings to make use of opposing lanes when the available lanes are full of traffic.
Like I get it, you’re a part of the government, or the military, but roads are public amenities. Public spaces that we all fund together through those 11% taxes we pay at cafés or those annual payments you make to the government as a vehicle owner. Public spaces that nobody strictly owns (unless you own a stretch of private road that is within your property boundaries), it’s everyone’s to use. Why do you have to be given priority to use this public amenity? Why do you have the right to use the police to use opposing lanes to get to your god damned destination faster? Why can’t we do that? And that’s not even counting the ear-splitting sirens those police bikes use every second second to warn of their arrival.
What sense of urgency do military personnel have that a college student doesn’t? It feels like these people are spoiled with the privilege of being driven around and the privilege of reaching their destinations in time. These people, public servants, only serve themselves. They use their own laws to make sure their lives are painless while the general public, the people who trusted them in their positions and paid for the amenities they get in that position, are left to sort themselves out. Why can’t government officials just wait and use the road like others do? Wait in traffic and be late to whatever thing they’re going to like the rest of us. There’s no urgency for you to be that fast. Military personnel need not be transported that 5 minutes sooner, we’re not in war. Government officials need not be driven from their taxpayer funded housing complexes to their offices with the diligence of lightning. Well, what if they’re late to their official meeting at their offices? Well, why don’t they depart their houses 10 minutes earlier like the rest of us? Government officials often have very tight schedules in their workday! I seriously doubt that knowing how most government workers can come in late at 9am and clock out at 2pm. Even if, why can’t they do meetings remotely or at their taxpayer funded residencies?
See the stupidity of these escorts? It screams privilege and power abuse. And it shows, it was reported a few weeks ago that a government escort felt so privileged they basically blocked the flow of public bus rapid transport. They feel like a bus, filled with people in a cramped space is less important than their schedule that it’s fine for them to squeeze through like the roads are all theirs.
The point is public servants should not be given any authority to override the flow of public transportation infrastructure. The same people who set the lines on the road are the same ones who sees them as mere suggestions for the general public.
That’s all I have to say, I’d go deep into how I’d end this madness if I ever get in power, but it’s just talk anyway, I can’t prove it’ll ever happen. Thanks for reading my article here.
Finding usable imagery to feature on this article reminds me to clarify that I do not have issues with escorts of actually important people like the President or a well-accepted government official who’s at high risk. I just hate it when military personnel or local government officials do it, it’s no need. And those sirens hurt my ears.
And apparently, there are services where rich people can pay for these escorts, for what? It’s way too capitalistic for a governmental institution like the police or the military police to do this. It’s a waste of resources.
previously posted on Medium at https://medium.com/@fjello/public-amenities-public-servants-and-power-dd66b54236f
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