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