Discipline and Enforcing the Rules

Author : Daniel M. Wattimena, California |

Retrieved from : http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/10/12/discipline-and-enforcing-rules.html ( On Thursday 14 October 2010 )

  As a clinical and social psychologist with experience in Europe, the US as well as Indonesia, I have been involved with developing discipline in various situations.

   Soldiers perform better due to the incentives of payment, increased payment and promotion the better.
Moreover the longer someone stays in the military, the more a person enjoys it, which is a built-in incentive.

Discipline comes easily to certain ethnic groups and not so easily to others.

    In Europe, germans are by nature well-disciplined because they are by nature compelled to obey commands almost blindly. The German saying Befehl ist Befehl (order is order} is self-explanatory. Americans, on the other hand, are trained to question authority and may need more time and effort to be disciplined.

The fact is, however, that anybody can be disciplined with appropriate incentives, motivation
and training.

     The average Jakarta motorist or driver is not disciplined — but can and needs to be trained to be disciplined and adhere to traffic rules. The training of Jakarta’s motorists needs a lot of motivation and incentives from the authorities. In this case, authorities also need to set examples to be followed by the drivers and motorists.

    This article is psychologically relevant to the traffic problems in Jakarta. It is designed to improve Jakarta’s traffic without much cost in terms of money spent but would require a lot of effort, training, motivation and incentive from the traffic authorities concerned, including the Governor and his subordinates, to implement.

   A fatal collision of a motorcycle and a small plane at Curug Airport several months ago resulted in the loss of life, including that of a promising young pilot. The losses were tragic and could have been avoided if strict discipline, including enforcement of clear-cut rules and regulations, had been established and imposed. An article in The Jakarta Post stated that the airport had been used by motorists as a shortcut.

    The accident was a consequence of the lack of enforcement of disciplinary action by airport authoritie — which resulted in extreme permissiveness and unacceptable tolerance of undisciplined behavior of motorists and other trespassers at the airport by authorities.

    Disobeying traffic rules is an example of lack of discipline and happens practically everywhere in the chaotic heavy traffic of Jakarta. At Kemang Raya, for example, the traffic is very chaotic.

    One sees bajaj and motorists riding in the wrong direction just because drivers want to arrive at their destination as soon as possible, taking all kinds of shortcuts, such as in Curug airport.

    At Kebayoran Baru, where the roads are broad and there are clear signs that motorcycles must stay
to the left of the road, chaos is far less evident  — but still there are visible signs of undisciplined riding and driving.

No wonder there are continuous traffic jams in practically every part of the city practically every hour of the day.

More signs indicating traffic rules need to be posted everywhere in the city. Regulations should be consistently and strictly enforced, including levying heavy penalties on violators of the rules.

    Development of discipline should involve frequent and consistent training of motorists. Motorcycle riders and car drivers should frequently be summoned for training by the traffic police.

    

    They should be taught appropriate traffic rules and regulations. Motorcyclists should be taught, for
instance, not to ride on the sidewalk or to pass on the wrong side of a vehicle.

    They should be educated about the blind spots of cars, trucks and bus drivers. They should be consistently evaluated on their driving ability and compelled to pay for this training.

    Another disciplinary training could be the use of public transportation. The public should be encouraged, motivated and rewarded for using public transportation.

    This reward or incentive can be in the form of discounted or free fares for frequent use of Transjakarta buses and public transportation. The bus system might use a monthly pass as a convenient incentive.
 

    Another enforcement of discipline is examples set from above. High government officials should make frequent use of public transportation. They should leave their cars at home and frequently use buses to work.

These are just a few very low cost hints of how to cope with the Jakarta traffic from the point of view of a psychologist. There may be other cost effective measures as well.

SUMMARY :

• Discipline can be developed and sometimes individuals can be motivated to show discipline. Motivating people to be disciplined often requires incentives for discipline to be fully developed, effective and also passion
• That anybody can be disciplined with appropriate incentives, motivation and training

•  Development of discipline should involve frequent and consistent training of motorists. Motorcycle riders and car drivers should frequently be summoned for training by the traffic police.

COMMENT :

     Yes i think so, to reduce traffic jam in Jakarta we must They should be taught appropriate traffic rules and regulations. Motorcyclists should be taught, for

instance, not to ride on the sidewalk or to pass on the wrong side of a vehicle.

     This article is psychologically relevant to the traffic problems in Jakarta. It is designed to improve Jakarta’s traffic without much cost in terms of money spent but would require a lot of effort, training, motivation and incentive from the traffic authorities concerned, including the Governor and his subordinates, to implement.

So need participation from every citizen not only from government, because traffic jam is our problem