`Private' traffic wardens often create mayhem
JAKARTA (JP): The young men who throughout the city hold up traffic in order to allow the motorists who pay them to make U- turns, is still raising questions on whether they expedite or hamper the flow of traffic.
They can be found standing at crossroads, three-way corners and U-turns to stop the stream of vehicles.
"We want to help smoothen the rush of traffic that is usually congested in this area," said 21-year Muhammad Kurnadi.
Muhammad and his four friends that afternoon were guarding a three-way at the Bintaro Raya and Deplu Raya streets in South Jakarta.
He said that he and his friends help to ease the glut of traffic coming in and out of Deplu Raya, which he said is at its worst between 6:30 and 8:00 and 16:00 and 18:30.
Muhammad said that he and his friends did not demand money for their services. "People give us between Rp 100 (four US cents) and Rp 500 out of their own free will."
He further revealed that on average they make about Rp 100,000 each day, except for Sundays which are usually least crowded.
At a U-turn on the new arteri road about 100 meters from the traffic light at Jl. Bungur, another group of youngsters direct traffic wanting to turn around by way of a broken road barrier.
About six-months ago police closed the U-turn by erecting a chain fence and cement block since it became a major congestion area for cars heading for Blok-M and Pondok Indah.
Barriers
However the barriers did not last long, almost over night unidentified people broke the erected barriers and allowed cars to pass through again.
One of the young attendants at the U-turn named Sidik Tedja swore that he knew nothing about those who broke the cement barriers.
"I think people like it this way because there are many cars who want to go the other way and the next U-turn is too far," he explained.
Sidik said that he and his friends were out of work and that rather than doing no good they felt they could do something useful by helping people with the traffic.
Though cars openly use that location, police seem to have given up attempting to undertake preventive measures.
Thus youngsters are publicly directing traffic through the illegal U-turn, causing a tremendous bottleneck which slows cars in their own lane while the boys delay traffic going in the other direction, causing another chaotic bottleneck.
"Yes, sometimes we have to slow down the other cars but its all well meant," Sidik said.
Nevertheless when confronted with several observations that they would allow cars to cut-in if paid about Rp 500, Sidik said that he and his friends never intend it to be that way. "They're going to cut-in anyway so we might as well take their money."
City police chief Maj. Gen. Mochammad Hindarto has tried to manage the presence of these "private" traffic wardens by giving them basic traffic training. He recently inaugurated 419 traffic warden volunteers or Supeltas as they are known.
However based on the observations conducted by The Jakarta Post at four locations in South Jakarta yesterday, none of the traffic wardens had been trained or formally authorized by the police.(mds)