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View all search resultsStop the sirens: Jakartans call to end officials’ road privileges
Jakarta residents are rallying behind a viral call to end officials’ traffic privileges, arguing that police escorts and blaring sirens add chaos to already congested streets and symbolize inequality on the road.
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Lead the way: Police motorcades escort vehicles carry replicas of the red-and-white flags and the text of the proclamation on Aug. 10, 2024, at the National Monument (Monas) in Central Jakarta. (State Secretariat Ministry/-)
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akarta’s traffic woes have left residents frustrated, a situation worsened by officials’ privilege to bypass traffic jams with police escorts, sparking a fresh call “stop tot tot wuk wuk” to protest such perks.
The phrase “stop tot tot wuk wuk” was taken from the wailing sirens of police patrol and escort teams (Patwal), typically accompanied by flashing strobes.
It has recently gone viral, with some Jakartans even attaching stickers to their vehicles that read, “Except ambulances and fire trucks, stop the strobes and sirens. You live on our taxes.”
The call, which urges people to ignore escort officers’ orders to pull over for passing officials, represents people’s long-simmering frustration over the convoys.
One of the most criticized incidents emerged in January, when an escort officer for Special Presidential Envoy for Youth and Arts Workers Development Raffi Ahmad was accused of acting arrogantly by pointing at a taxi blocking a car with the RI 36 license plate. The incident ended with a verbal warning from Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya to Raffi and the police officer.
However, this time, public discontent over officials’ use of police escorts culminated, following late-August protests against lawmakers’ lavish perks that sharpened public scrutiny of officials’ privileges and strengthened collective pushback.
