Govt revokes Kramatdjati bus license
Govt revokes Kramatdjati bus license
JAKARTA (JP): The Director General of Land Transportation
yesterday revoked the license of the Kramatdjati bus on which 31
people died in an accident on the Jagorawi toll road on Saturday.
J.A. Barata, spokesman for the Directorate General, told The
Jakarta Post that the revocation is to be applied only to the one
vehicle and will be effective from today. It means the company
will not be able to replace the destroyed bus.
Director General of Land Transportation Sujono had earlier
given a stern warning to the company's management, Barata said.
The Kramatdjati bus company, owned by the Arief Budiman
family from Bandung, West Java, currently operates 152 buses on
various routes in Java.
Commenting on the incident, the Indonesian Consumers
Protection Foundation called on carmakers which make large buses
to design emergency exits on buses to help passengers escape in
emergencies.
The foundation chairperson, Tini Hadad, said yesterday that
large buses for public transportation should be equipped with
emergency doors.
"The passengers must be informed where the emergency exit is
and how to open it in case of an emergency," Tini told the Post,
adding that most bus companies and crew ignore passengers' safety
rights.
Fire extinguishers and hard objects to break windows in case
of emergencies should be available on buses, she said.
Thirty one people were killed when a speeding Kramatdjati
public bus on the Jakarta-Bandung route hit a police jeep on the
Jagorawi tollway on Saturday. Twenty-nine of the victims were bus
passengers, and the two others were a policewoman and an
officer's wife.
The bus driver, Agus Effendi, 39, and the bus conductor,
Ade.S., are now in police custody for questioning.
Reports said the driver was drunk when driving the bus, and
police found barbiturate pills in his pocket soon after he was
caught.
Pills
"The driver may be prosecuted for his negligence. He may be
accused of causing other people's death intentionally. He is a
public bus driver but he took barbiturate pills before driving.
If found guilty he may face a life sentence," City Police
Spokesman Lt. Col. Iman Haryatna said.
According to Tini Hadad, the point is not only the ignorance
of the driver. "The company should have been more selective in
recruiting new drivers," Tini said.
She said that a possessing driver's license does not guarantee
that a driver is reliable. "People can buy a driver's license,
can't they?"
The wife of the owner of the Kramatdjati bus, Mrs. Agus
Budiman, told the Post in Bandung yesterday that the company had
been very careful in selecting drivers. "Agus is one of our best
drivers," she claimed.
She said all Kramatdjati bus drivers are good drivers and are
well paid. "The Kramatdjati family was shocked on hearing the
news of the deadly accident," she said, adding that adequate
compensation will be given to the victims' relatives.
The Consumers Foundation sees the core problem as a lack of
discipline in Indonesian society.
"If the drivers respected traffic regulations they would not
drive recklessly. The highway corporation PT Jasa Marga should
supervise reckless drivers more tightly," Tini said.
In a related development, lawyer R. Dwiyanto Prihartono of the
Jakarta branch of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute said
yesterday that the victims' relatives could file lawsuits against
both the driver and the bus company.
Dwiyanto, head of the operational division, said if the driver
is found guilty of using barbiturate pills he could face two
charges. "First he would be prosecuted for his negligence that
caused other people's death and he could also be charged with
using illegal substances," he said. (sur/raw/17/04/bsr)