Police to change traffic procedures

Police to change traffic procedures

The National Police pledged on Monday to evaluate their
procedures for halting traffic for VIPs after six people died in
a pileup on Jagorawi toll road on Wednesday.

"We will examine whether the accident was caused purely by the
negligence of the drivers or faults in the vehicles or by some
flaws in our procedures for halting traffic," Jakarta Police
chief Insp. Gen. Firman Gani said.

"We did not station officers to alert drivers some distance
before the site. But our procedures do not include this
stipulation. So we think we may have to remedy this," he said.

In the conference, which included top brass from the national
and Jakarta Police, Firman said police no longer considered
Hidayat, a pickup truck driver, to be responsible for the crash.
Hidayat died in the accident when his truck crashed into the back
of minivan, killing four of its occupants.

He had earlier been named a suspect by the police in the
accident.

The accident on Wednesday morning took place when traffic
police halted traffic on the toll road to allow President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono's entourage to pass.

It prompted the House of Representatives to summon the
National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Universitas Kristen Indonesia Hospital in East
Jakarta reported that seven of the 10 injured people hospitalized
since Wednesday had been discharged.--JP