List of traffic violations to be enlarged this year
JAKARTA (JP): City authorities are planning to add to the list of traffic violations and to further increase fine tariffs this year.
"We've found that a number of traffic violations have yet to be included on the current list," City Police Chief Maj. Gen. Mochammad Hindarto told The Jakarta Post yesterday.
Hindarto, however, refused to specify the types of traffic violations in question, merely saying that the matter is currently being studied by the City Traffic Police Directorate and related institutions.
"These additional types of traffic violations will be included on the new list along with the new tariff scale which will be much higher than the current one," he said without elaboration.
He said the new list might be issued early next year. "The current scale will be evaluated in December."
The current fine scale, implemented early last month and ranging from Rp 10,000 (US$4.60) to Rp 150,000, is being imposed on errant motorists during the ongoing massive one-month Zebra Operation which began on Sept. 26.
Beginning yesterday, the City Police Traffic Directorate has started to deploy its personnel to observe the implementation of the operation on highways throughout the city.
Head of the City Police Traffic Investigation Unit Lt. Col. Herman S. Sumawiredja announced that they ticketed a number of motorists during an operation yesterday morning.
Among the violators, he said, was a taxi driver who illegally overtook vehicles on the left side.
"We'll intensify the operation on highways beginning Thursday (tomorrow) until the end of the Zebra Operation," Herman said.
The police will be backed up by personnel from related offices, including from PT Jasa Marga, the state contractor of highways in the country.
Also beginning yesterday, the city police have deployed a number of plain-clothes officers inside public buses in a bid to ticket undisciplined bus drivers.
"It's legal for us to carry out such an operation," Herman said. "What we need is to make the traffic flow in this city better as asked by the public."
Jaywalkers
Herman also announced that the police have ticketed 45 street vendors and three jaywalkers with fines between Rp 2,000 and Rp 6,500 per case during the first two days of the operation which also opposes such practices.
He said that the street vendors were found selling their goods at prohibited sites near the Pasar Minggu shopping area in South Jakarta.
"Of the number, 19 were ticketed on Monday and 26 others today (yesterday)," he said.
All of the vendors were taken to a nearby police station and judged on the spot. The suspects believed to have caused traffic congestion in the area were deemed guilty of disobeying a city regulation which normally carries a maximum fine of Rp 50,000 per violation or a maximum imprisonment of three months.
However the officials decided to set the current fine between Rp 2,000 and Rp 3,000 owing to that particular law being new and to the fact that the vendors may not have fully understood the regulation.
Many vendors have questioned the police move to ticket and prohibit them selling their goods on, for example, sidewalks. They said that they have the right to run their businesses on sidewalks because they pay between Rp 500 and Rp 1,000 per day to the authorities.(bsr)