Harsh measures planned against balky commuters
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)