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Motorcyclists top traffic violators in Greater Jakarta
Road users in the capital and its surrounding areas are not exactly known for obeying traffic rules
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Road users in the capital and its surrounding areas are not exactly known for obeying traffic rules.
Police data show that from January to June this year, 550,896 people were ticketed for traffic violations in Greater Jakarta, which includes Tangerang, South Tangerang, Depok and Bekasi.
More than 5.4 million people were ticketed from 2014 to 2018.
The Jakarta Post has selected statistical highlights:
Undisciplined motorcyclists can be found on most streets in Greater Jakarta. One of the most common violations is running red lights, which happens more often when motorcyclists think there are no police officers around.
In the past five years, 4.15 million motorcyclists have been ticketed for breaking the rules, making up 76 percent of all traffic tickets. The most common violations are driving in the wrong direction, running a red light, not wearing a helmet and having more than two adults on a motorcycle.
The largest number of motorcycle traffic violations occurred in 2016, when the police issued 1.03 million tickets (79 percent of all tickets).
Drivers of passenger cars — which include sedans, hatchbacks, SUVs and jeeps — are the second biggest violators with 459,211 tickets in the last five years.
Coming in at a close third are drivers of angkot (public minivans) and minibuses (Metromini, Kopaja) with 418,290 tickets.
The data show that the top five traffic violations in 2014-2018 were not heeding traffic signs, not carrying the necessary legal documents while driving, driving in the wrong direction, not wearing a helmet and driving in a busway lane.
Ignoring traffic signs was the most common violation, with tickets issued to 2.23 million road users from 2014 to 2018. The second top violation was driving without a driver’s license and/or the vehicle ownership document (STNK), committed by 686,444 road users. The third was driving in the wrong direction with 686,395 tickets.
“[Driving in the wrong direction] occurs because of the low level of awareness among motorcyclists,” Jakarta Police traffic law enforcement head Comr. Muhammad Nasir told the Post recently.
“The [Greater Jakarta] administrations have designed many U-turns that follow traffic standards,” he said. Nasir added that the police and city administrations had struggled to reduce the number of traffic violations because road users did not use designated U-turn lanes and instead drove in the wrong direction.
The fourth and fifth violations, respectively, were motorcyclists driving without wearing a helmet (462,071 tickets) and road users entering dedicated busway lanes (198,762 tickets).
Of the 5.4 million traffic offenses committed in the last five years, male road users dominated traffic violators with 4.65 million tickets, while tickets were issued to 770,666 female road users.
However, traffic violations committed by female road users have been seeing an annual increase over the last five years.
“The number of women driving two-and four-wheeled vehicles has increased. As a result, the number of violations committed by [women] has also increased,” said Nasir.
Most traffic violators in 2014-2018 fell into the 16-30 age group, which received 2.14 million traffic tickets. This was followed by road users aged 31 to 40 years with 1.96 million tickets and finally road users aged 41 to 50 with 949,287 tickets.
Meanwhile, the police issued 102,026 tickets to 10- to 15-year-old offenders. One needs to be at least 16 years old to obtain a license to drive a motorcycle and 17 to drive a passenger car.
The police have been unable to reduce the number of underage road users over the last five years.
“Many parents continue to allow their underage children to ride motorbikes,” said Nasir. He added that the police, in coordination with Greater Jakarta administrations, had held many public campaigns to address the issue.
The Jakarta Police did not issue a single ticket in 2014-2018 for speeding, which was consistent with previous years. New traffic technologies apparently have yet to prompt the police to crack down on motorists speeding on the innercity toll road at 100 kilometers per hour and above.
The toll road is signposted with a maximum speed limit of 80 kph.
Nasir said it was difficult to speed in Greater Jakarta as congestion occurred at many intersections, whether they were equipped with traffic lights or not. He said this was why police had never issued tickets for exceeding the speed limit.
“Moreover, [most] drivers don’t want to speed up because they know that there might be a red light ahead,” Nasir added.
The Jakarta Police recently installed speed cameras along the capital’s thoroughfares as part of the Electronic Traffic Law Enforcement (ETLE) system, but they are not operating yet.
The police data show that karyawan (office workers) are the single largest group of violators by occupation.
However, karyawan is also the top choice for occupation on an identity card.
Of the 5.4 million traffic offenders in 2014-2018, 3.26 million were karyawan, 858,188 were private or public transportation drivers, 497,602 were university students, 286,852 were elementary-secondary school students, 54,383 were civil servants and 353,921 were categorized by the police as “others”.
The police have included the occupational categories “Police” and “TNI” (Indonesian Military), but traffic violations over the last five years for these categories was listed as zero. (das)
