More than 70 percent of public buses in the city do not take road worthiness tests but poor law enforcement has allowed them to ply the roads.
Heren Roni, officer at the Vehicle Testing Center in Pulogadung, East Jakarta, said that 8,124 of 11,241 registered public buses do not take the road worthiness test.
Jakarta has 5,337 registered minibuses with 3,282 failing to take the test, and 5,904 buses but 4,824 have not taken the test.
The vehicle owners should have taken it before Oct. 17, 2009.
"Many vehicle owners neglect the test because they do not understand its importance," Roni said Wednesday.
The Vehicle Testing Center obliges public vehicles to undergo the road-worthiness test every six months.
According to the 2009 Law on Traffic, delinquent vehicle owners receive a warning letter and if this is ignored they are fined.
Authorities can also withdraw their business permit.
Any public vehicle cannot operate unless they pass the test but in fact many buses with poor condition are seen on the street.
Roni said that this was because of poor law enforcement, resulting from weak coordination between the City Transportation Agency and the Jakarta Police as the two institutions with authority in regulating the traffic.
However, several public bus drivers in Manggarai bus terminal, South Jakarta, said that the transportation agency often checked their vehicles' documents.
"They enter our buses twice a week to determine whether we have undergone the road-worthiness test and to check our documents," Rohman said, a minibus driver at the terminal Thursday.
He further complained that when a bus completed the test, the officers usually would ask the driver to pay between Rp 10,000 (US$1.0) and Rp 20,000, or more than Rp 50,000 if the vehicle had not passed the test on time or if the driver failed to provide complete documents.
Bus drivers who had their vehicles checked at the Pulogadung Vehicle Testing Center also complained about illegal fees.
They said they had to give money to officers to spray paint on the vehicle marking that it passed the test even though there was a sign reading spray-painting was free.
During a road-worthiness test, the center checks among others, emissions, brakes, speedometer accuracy, tires, lights and noise level.
If a vehicle fails the test, the owner is allowed to take the test again after improving the vehicles condition.
Roni said that the center could test 30 to 40 vehicles a day and it took only between 15 minutes and half-an-hour for each of them.
It charged an air-conditioned bus Rp 40,000 for levies plus Rp 198,000 for terminal development contribution, while non-air conditioned buses did not pay a fee, he added.
He said that the center could only test a vehicle's road worthiness.
For reparation, the vehicle must be taken to an automechanic.
For a vehicle that is one month overdue being tested, the center fines the owner 50 percent of the Rp 40,000 fee.
A fine equal to 100 percent of the fee is imposed on those who test the vehicles between one to three months after the due date.
A 200 percent fine occurs for more than three months delay. (rdf)
