Discipline needed to promote traffic laws, Haryanto says
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)