Sixteen killed in toll road accidents, says official

Sixteen killed in toll road accidents, says official

JAKARTA (JP): At least 110 traffic accidents took place on toll roads during the period from Jan. 12 to Jan. 27, around the Idul Fitri holiday. Sixteen people were killed, 89 severely wounded and 160 sustained minor injuries from the accidents, an official said.

David Wijayatno, spokesman for the state-owned toll road management company PT Jasa Marga, said on Friday that the accidents were mainly caused by vehicular faults, as opposed to last year's Idul Fitri holiday when accidents were mostly attributed to reckless driving.

The highest proportion of accidents, accounting for one-third of those caused by poorly maintained vehicles, was due to tire blowouts, David was quoted by Antara as saying.

"Out of the 110 accidents, 52 cases, or 47 percent of the total were caused by the poor condition of the vehicles, and 37 of them, or about 33.6 percent, were caused by exploding tires," he said.

He urged motorist to be careful and replace old tires, as badly worn tires can easily explode at high speeds.

Out of the 110 accidents, 43 took place along the Jakarta- Cikampek section of the toll roads, 21 on the Padalarang-Cileunyi stretch in West Java, 17 on the Jakarta-Tangerang section, and 29 accidents occurred along the Plumbon-Kanci section in West Java and the Cawang-Tomang-Cengkareng stretch in Jakarta, he said.

David said that during the Jan. 12 to Jan. 27 period, the average number of vehicles passing the Cikampek toll gate reached 40,000 per day, the Ciawi toll gate in Bogor recorded 26,000 per day, Merak had 5,600, Cileunyi 25,200 and Kanci recorded 14,900 vehicles per day.

Long queues were seen mostly in the mornings, and several-hour-long traffic jams occurred on the third and fourth days ahead of the Idul Fitri festivities, David said.

The traffic activity, which differed from earlier years witnessing traffic jams during the evening as well, was possibly caused by fear of motorists to drive at night, he said.

David said that during the Idul Fitri holiday the company's earnings reached only Rp 1.79 billion, a slight drop from the Rp 1.82 billion for the corresponding period in 1998.

"The major drop in income was caused by the falling number of motorists using the toll road networks in the capital," he explained. (hhr)