List of traffic violations to be enlarged this year

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)