Jakarta – The city government demolished a street bump in North Jakarta on Thursday evening following reports that many motorcyclists crashed while riding at a normal speed over it throughout the day.
The speed reduction device on Jalan Danau Sunter Selatan has the size and is marked like a crosswalk, catching clueless motorists by surprise as they pass over the bump. Some of them were unfortunate as they immediately lost the front and crashed.
People went to social media to complain about the dangerous obstacle and posted videos of successive crashes that mainly involved motorcycles.
One video shows a woman lying on the sidewalk and a male voice can be heard saying: "There's another victim because of that thing ..."
As he was speaking, another motorcyclist crashed after passing over the street bump. The horrible scene was caught in the same video.
"This is very dangerous, I swear to you. It causes many people to crash, including myself," the man said and moved the camera to show his bleeding hand.
The street bump was built by the Jakarta Transport Department, reportedly at the request of the Metropolitan Police over complaints about rampant illegal street racing in the area.
Following the internet outrage, the Public Works Department came to the area to remove the street bump only 24 hours after it was constructed.
According to traffic regulations, street bumps should be used in 10 km/hour zones like residential areas or places where people and vehicles are in close proximity which causes safety risks.
North Jakarta Traffic officer Adjunct Commissioner Edy Wibowo said he was aware of multiple accidents because of the street bump but nobody came to his office for a complaint.
"It was constructed by the Transport Department and I didn't know when they built this," Edy said.
Some internet users complained that the structure of the vertical obstacle was too high.