Over 100 public bus drivers pass safe driving course
Over 100 public bus drivers pass safe driving course
JAKARTA (JP): A total of 103 bus drivers, with black marks on their records for traffic violations, have passed a city police vehicle safety course.
City Police Chief Maj. Gen. Mochammad Hindarto expressed surprise yesterday over the drivers sterling performance on a test which is much more complicated than the one given to new applicants.
"In general, they correctly answered 95 percent of the test material, which has been revised with lots of difficult questions," Hindarto said.
The bus drivers transgressions' include speeding, reckless driving, picking up or discharging passengers illegally and lending their vehicles to unauthorized drivers.
The course was a condition for their reinstatement and was part of broader police efforts to instill good driving habits. The test consisted of a written and a driving portion.
The test items also contained questions regarding the new traffic law which was issued last September.
As predicted the drivers had no problem with the test drive.
Head of the driving license unit at City Police headquarters, Maj. Yudi Sushariyanto, who chaired the tests, said the results showed that bad driving does not come from a lack of knowledge.
"The result of this review test indicated that many drivers of public transit vehicles know well about traffic regulations, and that their obedience to traffic law is another matter-- their attitude," Yudi said.
Transit safety has become a focus after a series of serious accidents in the city recently, in particular the packed minibus which careened into the muddy, heavily polluted Sunter River killing 33 people.
Sloppy drivers
Critics, blaming Yudi's office for the accident, said that many of the sloppy drivers get their licenses easily as long as they pay a bribe to the police officers, regardless of their driving ability.
According to Yudi, the police will blacklist any of the participant of the driving course if they are find to violate the law in the future.
"They would never get another driving license for the rest of their life and we'll ask their companies to discharge them," he insisted.
According to data at the City Police, the number of traffic accidents, especially those caused by the drivers's negligence, have increased significantly in the last few years.
Last year, of the 249 serious traffic accidents in the city, 36 were caused by the negligence of public bus drivers.
As of the third month of this year, four of 30 fatal accidents have been caused by the negligence of city bus drivers. (bsr)