Land Transportation Problems Can Threaten Eight Percent Economic Growth Target

Officers evacuated the tourism bus involved in the accident with a cattle feed truck on the Pandaan-Malang Toll Road, East Java, Monday (23/12/2024). (ANTARA PHOTO/Ahmad Prabowo/wpa)

JAKARTA The number of land transportation accidents, especially those involving tourism buses and logistics trucks, is increasingly concerning. For this reason, concrete steps are needed from the government to reduce the number of land transportation accidents because this will affect the economic growth target of eight percent in the next four to five years.

Land transportation accidents that have repeatedly become a sign that the government is not serious about solving this problem. Even though the losses incurred were not kidding, ranging from infrastructure damage to casualties.

The Advisory Board of the Indonesian Transportation Society (MTI) Agus Pambagio urged the government to immediately take concrete steps to overcome land transportation problems.

"The safety of land transportation is very concerning, but there is no effort from the government to tackle it so that this incident continues to repeat itself," Agus said at a press conference in Jakarta, Thursday (23/1).

Logistical transport accidents occur almost every day, even reaching seven incidents only within the same radius. According to MTI records, the truck fleet ranks second as the cause of traffic accidents, although the number is less than four-wheeled vehicles.

Not long ago there was a truck accident that was suspected of having failed brakes due to overload orOver Dimension and Over Load (ODOL). The accident occurred in Semarang on Tuesday (21/1/2025) night and hit a number of motorcycles.

The next day on the Cikampek-Purwakarta-Padalarang (Cipularang) Toll Road, Km 80 + 400 towards Bandung, an accident involving a truck and minibus also occurred.

Not to mention the accidents were also experienced by tourism buses, which often brought students on travel tours. Such as the Tirto Agung tourism bus carrying a group of students from IT SMP Darul Qu,ran Mulia Putri Bogor, West Java, crashed into a truck carrying animal feed. Four people were reported to have died in an accident that occurred at kilometer 77 of the Pandaan-Malang Toll Road, Monday (23/12/2024).

The three accidents are only a few of the series of accidents that seem to decorate the news of the mass media almost every day. What is now the concern of many circles, including MTI, is an accident involving tourism buses and ODOL trucks.

The series of accidents involving trucks occurred due to the low competence of the drivers, the unmaintained condition of the vehicle, and others. But as if they did not learn from the various previous incidents, this incident reflected weak governance and the lack of improvement efforts that should have been made by the government.

For this reason, MTP urges President Prabowo Subianto and Minister of Transportation Dudy Purwagandhi to immediately take concrete and measurable steps to overcome the problem of land transportation safety.

"The Minister of Transportation cannot just remain silent. Concrete steps must be taken immediately to overcome land transportation accidents that continue to occur," said Agus Pambagio.

He added that improvement efforts were not enough just by appeal, but must be in the form of policies and concrete steps that had a direct impact on improving safety.

"So the government must do something to reduce the number of accidents," he said.

The Head of the MTI Regional Empowerment and Development Division, Djoko Setijowarno, said that in accidents involving ODOL, they often only drag the driver to the court while the owner of the vehicle, the transportation company, and the owner of the goods escape the penalty even though they should be responsible.

This system needs to be changed. All parties, from employers to goods owners, must take responsibility for ensuring safety on the highway," said Djoko.

President Prabowo Subianto is optimistic that an eight percent economic growth target can be achieved in the next four to five years. It must be admitted that there is a lot of homework that the government must complete in order to achieve economic growth of eight percent. This can be from regulations and legal reforms to reduce the leakage of the state budget.

On the other hand, the government must also stabilize prices, create jobs, and increase people's purchasing power.

Meanwhile, MTI Chairman Tory Damantoro said transportation has an important role in the economic growth of a country. Unfortunately, the Indonesian government does not seem to make transportation a priority to be addressed, even though the shortcomings are seen here and there.

Seeing the chaotic transportation problems experienced by Indonesia, especially regulations regarding ODOL, Damantoro said that the government's pessimism was able to realize the target.

Currently, when economic growth was still below five percent, Indonesia experienced a high number of accidents that caused economic harm, damaged infrastructure, and sacrificed many lives. This, said Darmanto, was due to the increasingly rampant ODOL vehicles.

"If it's like this now, what if economic growth reaches eight percent? What else can we bear the loss and death toll?" said Damantoro.

On this occasion, Damantoro compared Indonesia with other countries that experienced economic growth of around five percent, but were able to overcome ODOL through strict regulations and joint commitments of all ministries.

For this reason, he asked President Prabowo to directly lead national efforts to improve the transportation safety system as a whole.

"Transportation is very important for economic growth and if the economy grows, the government will have more budget to fund welfare programs such as free nutritious food," said Damantoro.

Without decisive and systemic steps, said Darmantoro, the safety of land transportation in Indonesia will continue to deteriorate, swallow more victims, and cause losses in all measurable aspects, and in the end will be the main obstacle to economic growth of eight percent.

"We urge the government to make land transportation safety a national priority in order to save the lives and future of the nation," he concluded.