Smoking prohibited in public buses
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)