Discipline needed to promote traffic laws, Haryanto says

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto said Saturday that people should discipline themselves to adhere to the latest body of traffic laws, which has been in force for one year.

"Vehicle owners, operators, drivers, passengers, officers and other street users should improve their discipline," Haryanto told reporters after attending a ceremony for the commemoration of the Transportation Day at his office.

He said that, under the new Traffic Laws, the practice of ticketing totally depends on each local authority.

"Last year, the government stressed that the traffic law should be implemented 'wisely'. Therefore, the ticketing system will be different in different places throughout the country," he said.

He said that the current implementation of the ticketing system, which is adapted to the special conditions in each city in Indonesia, is appropriate and understandable.

"But, someday, I hope there will be only one standardized ticketing system," he added.

The main considerations in implementing the traffic law is local administration, comprising the Traffic Land Transportation Control Agency (LLAJR), local authorities, local courts and local police offices.

Haryanto said he found that many young, wealthy and educated people frequently broke the law and blamed officers for having a "bad attitude."

"I don't think that this is right. If they did not do anything wrong, why should they be afraid of the officers and start blaming them?" he asked. He added that drivers should work to protect each other.

"We should be more disciplined as we do use the streets together. It seems so simple but it is difficult to do," he said.

He also said that on Wednesday, President Soeharto will award certain cities for best discipline in transportation.

"We will then pick three cities from West, Central and East Java as the archetypes for their successful traffic sign arrangements," he said. He added that the cities chosen will be those having heavy traffic.

Haryanto also said that the government expects to hold courses on traffic regulation for some 150,000 public transportation drivers by the end of this year.

He said that the increase in traffic problems was due to the fact that the growth of road infrastructure was not fast enough to accommodate the increasing number of cars.

He said the best solution to the traffic problems was to prepare mass rapid transportation facilities.(icn)