Minister laments increase in traffic fatalities

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto commemorated yesterday National Transportation Day lamenting the increasing number of traffic fatalities despite the drop in overall accidents.

He pointed out that in 1985 there were 42,082 accidents causing 10,283 deaths.

This number of accidents has continually dropped with 25,741 in 1990, 16,510 in 1995, and 7,367 in the first five months of this year.

But the number of traffic fatalities has sadly gone up. There were 10,036 fatalities in 1990, 10,990 in 1995, and 5,140 in the first five months this year.

"These figures show that the (negative) quality of road accidents has been increasing," Haryanto said yesterday.

Haryanto did not try to surmise the cause of the increased number of fatalities.

His comments come in the wake of one of the country's worst road accidents.

An intercity bus collided with a dump truck at the Cakung- Cikunir toll road on Sunday night killing 35 passengers.

Haryanto reiterated his call for the revocation of the fateful Jaya Bakti bus company's license. The driver of the bus was found intoxicated.

"They should not run a business if they can't control their buses," he added.

The director general for land communication at the Ministry of Transportation, Santo Budiono, also expressed concern over the frequency of toll road accidents.

He said that people were prone to going over the speed limit on toll roads.

"Moreover, drivers here have a bad habit of not letting other vehicles overtake them," he added.

So far this year, there have been at least 22 toll road accidents that have claimed 80 lives.

Most of the accidents were reportedly caused by human error.

Separately, the head of the University of Bhayangkara, Koesparmono Irsan, did not agree with comments saying that the frequency of accidents had declined but the negative quality had increased.

"Accidents will always be accidents," he said, adding that the revocation of licenses would not solve the problem.

The government should perform an in-depth analysis to solve the transportation problems and, if necessary, a special team should be created, Koesparmono said.

He also said that a comprehensive and holistic approach was needed to answer the more and more complex transportation problems.

"The handling (of such problems) should no longer be reactive," he said. (10)