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Over 80,000 road users ticketed in operation
Traffic raid: The police in Depok, West Java, assisted by soldiers from the Jakarta garrison, check on vehicle documents and driving licenses of motorists in Operation Zebra on Jl
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span class="inline inline-center">Traffic raid: The police in Depok, West Java, assisted by soldiers from the Jakarta garrison, check on vehicle documents and driving licenses of motorists in Operation Zebra on Jl. Margonda Raya in the municipality on Tuesday. The police checked on vehicle documents of civilians while the military officers checked on military personnel. JP/P.J. Leo
The Jakarta Traffic Police ticketed 80,960 road users in Greater Jakarta from Nov. 26 to Dec. 9 for this year's Operation Zebra.
'The number of motorists ticketed by our police increased greatly from last year,' Jakarta Traffic Police law enforcement head Adj. Sr. Comr. Hindarsono told The Jakarta Post over the phone on Tuesday.
He said that motorcyclists received the highest number of tickets during this year's operation. The police managed to ticket 58,012 motorcyclists for various traffic violations. They issued 5,743 tickets for violations committed by private cars.
Last year, Jakarta Police data shows that 64,332 road users were ticketed in total. Motorcyclists were ticketed the most at 44,404, followed by 6,491 private vehicles.
'Out of the motorcyclists this year, 19,964 motorists were ticketed because they drove against the flow of traffic, which was one of our focuses during this year's mass operation,' he said.
The police also ticketed 9,839 public transportation vehicles for stopping arbitrarily to pick up or drop off passengers.
According to Hindarsono, the massive Rp 2.9 billion (US$237,880) operation focused on those two infractions as they were two of the most commonly found in Greater Jakarta.
Jakarta Police data described that aside from the annual Operation Zebra, officers ticketed 62,691 vehicles for driving against traffic from January to September, with 9,233 of them fined in October alone.
Meanwhile, 5,964 public vehicles were ticketed in October for stopping arbitrarily to drop off or pick up passengers, up from 4,466 in September.
Apart from the increase in the number of vehicles ticketed by traffic police officers, Hindarsono explained that the operation this year was successful in decreasing the number of traffic accidents.
During the two weeks, the Jakarta Traffic Police recorded 112 accidents in Greater Jakarta with 24 lives lost due to the accidents. The other victims either suffered major or minor injuries.
'By ticketing more we were able to decrease the number of traffic accidents by around 40 percent. This applies to both the number of accidents and also the number of people injured or dead from the accidents,' he said.
Some 4,373 traffic accidents have been recorded up through October this year with a total of 5,377 victims including 450 lives lost.
Although he deemed the operation a success, Hindarsono said that there were several obstacles the traffic police faced. One of the obstacles was the large number of vehicles in Greater Jakarta.
'The number rises every year even though the number of traffic police officers don't,' he said.
According to police data, there were 16.04 million motorized vehicles in Greater Jakarta last year and was expected to increase this year.
Furthermore, he said that the operation also stopped briefly during major downpours since it was the rainy season.
Separately, a member of the Jakarta Transportation Council (DTKJ), Ellen Tangkudung, said that the massive operation was ineffective in really decreasing the number of traffic violations annually.
'Operation Zebra has no deterrent effect because its only done for two weeks and after the operation is over, people will be more relaxed about traffic violations again,' she said.
She added that the Jakarta Traffic Police should also evaluate before and after the operation about the number of violators and also possible reasons why motorists might choose to violate traffic laws.
'However, I still think that the operation should be conducted annually because it shows that even with the operation there were still a lot of violators,' she said.
