Tourists to be banned from renting scooters in Bali

With tourist numbers reaching pre-pandemic levels, Indonesians are growing increasingly angry with the reckless behaviour of foreign scooter riders.

Young Australian without a helmet riding on scooter in the night club district during schoolies, Kuta, Bali. Picture: Liam Kidston

Australians and other foreign tourists will be banned from renting scooters in Bali as the holiday mecca cracks down on illegal activities and public nuisance.

Bali Governor Wayan Koster announced the move just a few days after an Australian woman went viral for arguing with traffic police for not wearing a helmet, yelling at them in Indonesian language that she had been in Bali for 23 years and her helmet had been stolen.

"Saya disini 23 tahun!"
Just another entitled bule in Canggu. 💁🏽‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/sQRjfJEXFx

— Tukang Sayat Kulit (@akuluka) March 9, 2023

With thousands of tourists returning daily to Bali, reaching pre-pandemic levels, Indonesians are growing increasingly angry with the reckless behaviour of foreign scooter riders.

But Australians are not the worst offenders in traffic violations, with Bali police reporting that out of 170 traffic violations by foreign tourists in the past week, 56 of them were Russians, compared to 10 Australians and five Ukrainians.

Locals have also reported Russian citizens illegally owning scooter-renting businesses and installing custom licence plates.

Under Indonesia’s traffic law, scooter drivers who are not wearing helmets will be fined 250,000 rupiah ($24.50), while drivers without a driver’s licence will be fined $98. Drivers who use fake licence plates will be fined $49.

Amid this pressure, Mr Koster went as far as calling for Jakarta to cancel visa-on-arrival facilities for Russian and Ukrainian citizens.

“These two countries are at war so many of them came to Bali not for leisure but also for work,” he said on Sunday, adding that he was not calling out other countries because the violations were “not as many as those committed by citizens of the two countries”.

Indonesia has offered visa-on-arrival facilities to 86 countries, which boosted foreign tourist visits to Bali up to 2.3 million last year. Of this number, Australia contributed the most with more than 745,000 tourists. There were nearly 60,000 Russian tourists and 7466 Ukrainian visiting Bali.

Last week, three Russian citizens were arrested by Indonesian immigration for violating their residence permits by engaging in commercial sex work. They were caught during an immigration control operation based on information received from residents about suspicious activity at villas in Seminyak. Two of them entered Indonesia using visitors visa, while one of them entered on a visa-on-arrival.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian was deported for fabricating documents in order to acquire an Indonesian national identity card.

Mr Koster, whose term as governor ends this year and has announced that he’s seeking re-election, insisted that the new policies and crack down had nothing to do with the viral posts complaints online.

“We’ve been looking into this since the Covid-19 pandemic, but of course you can’t be in a hurry to reveal it. We work silently, after confirming everything and having strong evidence, we will take action,” the member of ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle’s (PDI-P) said.

However, Indonesian Tourism Minister Sandiaga Uno called for comprehensive studies for both the scooter ban and cancellation of visa-on-arrival for Russian and Ukrainian citizens. “This is also a business sector that opens up a lot of opportunities and employment. We have to consider the sustainability of the local community’s economy while upholding traffic rules,” he said on Monday.

He said the number of unruly tourists from Russia and Ukraine might not be as significant compared to the total visits to Bali.