Smoking prohibited in public buses

JAKARTA (JP): Director General of Land Transportation Soejono said yesterday that the directorate will reinforce a regulation prohibiting people to smoke cigarettes inside public buses.

This regulation was a necessary follow-up to a rule that required bus crews to keep bus doors closed while the bus was in motion.

"We'll remind the public that smoking is prohibited in public buses," Soejono said, adding that the regulation was published six years ago but had gone unheeded.

He stressed that his directorate, aware of the fact that smoking is hazardous to health, will encourage people to ask smokers not to smoke inside buses.

"Smoking is a bad habit which may impair the health of passive smokers more than the smokers themselves," said Soejono, himself a chain smoker.

Confirming Soejono's statements, consumer activists demanded the government increase the anti-smoking campaigns and sanctions against selfish smokers.

"A cigarette contains more than 40,000 poisonous components that is surely dangerous to health," said Masino, the executive director of the Indonesian Heart Foundation.

Masino noted that the non-smoking regulations in land, sea and air transports, which were published under the rule of the earlier Minister of Transportation Azwar Anas, are ineffective because smokers are not discouraged.

"We have to develop a habit where people should remind smokers not to smoke in certain areas," said the middle-aged director who gave up smoking more than ten years ago.

According to him, drivers and bus crew are responsible for clean air inside the buses and should see to it that the passengers are not disturbed by cigarette smoke.

Willing to support the new regulation, passengers protested the air pollution inside the buses because smokers often disobey the notice.

Ethics

The head of the Jakarta Land and Transportation Control Agency (DLLAJ), J.P. Sepang, said that smoking is a matter of ethics.

"Those who know that smoking is endangering other people's health should not smoke inside the buses," Sepang said, adding that the government cannot intervene in such a personal matter.

According to him, no rule which says that the state could interfere in smoking affairs.

Meanwhile, spokesman of the state-owned Perusahaan Pengangkutan Djakarta (PPD) said that the company had placed stickers inside the buses which call on the passengers not to smoke or spit.

Hamim Busro, however, said that many of passengers as well as bus crew ignore the warnings and smoke inside the buses.

"So far, we have not warned drivers or bus crew who were smoking inside their buses," Hamim said.

In a related development, chairwoman of the Indonesian Consumers Organization (YLKI) Zumrotin Kasru Susilo told The Jakarta Post yesterday that she will fully support Soejono's action.

"It's important," Zumrotin said, noting that she raised the question because the Ministry of Transportation had failed to carry out the ruling for the past six years.

"Our buses are no more than sardine cans where the passengers totally lose their dignity as human beings," Zumrotin said, referring to the buses' poor service.

She noted that the government had been continually asking people to pay taxes, "It is our turn to ask the government to give us a better public services, including putting a stop to this chronic transport smoking habit." (05/09)