Harsh measures planned against balky commuters

JAKARTA (JP): City Police plan to take harsh action against commuters who enter or exit public vehicles at prohibited places.

"A violator will face a maximum imprisonment of three months or a fine of Rp 50,000 (US$23) as stipulated by City Regulation No. 9 issued in 1992 on Traffic and Land Transportation," head of the City Traffic Police Directorate Col. Soeroso told reporters yesterday.

Soeroso, however, refused to disclose when the plan will take effect. "This has already been approved, meaning that we have to do it as soon as possible," he said simply.

The coordination with related parties, including the prosecutor's office and the Traffic and Land Transportation Control Agency (DLLAJ), is still underway to decide what type of "harsh action" would be imposed on violators, he said.

The idea to also punish errant commuters came from many city minibus drivers who were staging the sit-in strikes, which have lasted three days.

Most of the striking drivers complained about the unfair treatment inherent in the traffic law whereby police ticket the drivers without trying to discover the main cause of the violation.

"My friend was ticketed for violating the closed-door policy just because a passenger forced him to get off at a prohibited point," Mohamad Nur, a driver of Kopaja, told The Jakarta Post yesterday.

Based on the new fine scale, violators for such an offense are liable to be fined Rp 125,000 compared to the previous Rp 15,600.

Unfair

The massive strikes were staged by drivers of the 12- and 30- seat minibuses beginning Tuesday to protest the new tariff scale, especially the one set for the closed-door rule, as well as the unfair police practices in ticketing the violators, particularly the bus drivers.

"The police never gave us a chance to explain what caused us to violate the regulations," said Hasonangan, another driver who joined the strike Wednesday. "They just stop us, take our documents and write down the type of violation according to their own version without bothering to listen to our explanations."

"Let the court make the final decision," Soeroso said. The judges, he said, could realistically impose a fine of between Rp 5,000 and Rp 6 million on a violator of the closed-door policy because the maximum fine for traffic violation as stipulated in Traffic Law No. 14 issued in 1992 is Rp 6 million.

Soeroso is a former head of the traffic directorate at the North Sumatra police headquarters. He has held his current post for the past two months.

The new fine scale, effective as of Sept. 1 and fully supported by the government, is strongly believed to have been proposed by Soeroso.

During the first seven days of the implementation of the new fine scale, police data revealed that a total of 5,097 traffic violators, mostly city bus drivers, were ticketed in and around the city.

Most of them were found in violation of the closed-door policy, said Maj. Basri Jatoko, an officer of the traffic directorate.

Head of the drivers' license unit Maj. Anton Bachrul Alam said that the number of applicants for drivers' licenses has significantly increased over the last few days.

"Most of them applied for drivers' licenses for public buses," he said. (bsr)