Motorists fool police to escape 3-in-1 policy

Desy Nurhayati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 02/04/2009 10:09 AM   

Police are finding it difficult to enforce the three-in-one zone policy during rush hour as private car users evade being ticketed by using trickery.  

Besides using traffic jockeys — people who they pick up to allow their vehicles to enter restricted zones — car users have another trick up their sleaves: dolls. 

“I once caught two people in a private car at Hotel Indonesia traffic circle using a doll seated in the car to look as if they carried three passengers,” said a police officer patrolling Senayan traffic circle in South Jakarta on Monday. 

“I warned them that they had broken the three-in-one rule, but they just laughed,” said the officer, who asked to remain anonymous. 

Under the three-in-one rule, enacted in 1994, private cars must have at least three passengers to travel along main thoroughfares from Blok M in South Jakarta to Kota in West Jakarta during weekdays from 7 a.m to 10 a.m and from 4 p.m to 7 p.m to ease traffic congestion in the city. 

However, the rule encourages people to serve as traffic jockeys as most of private car users have less than three people on board. Traffic jockeys are usually paid between Rp 10,000 and Rp 20,000, sometimes more, per ride. 

Traffic police officers patrolling three-in-one zones said they could not stop the violators one by one to ticket them or simply give them warnings. 

“We are not only responsible for monitoring the implementation of the three-in-one policy, but also ensuring that the traffic along this street runs smoothly,” said First Insp. Suprapto, who also patrolled around the Senayan traffic circle. 

Another officer patrolling the Harmoni intersection in Central Jakarta, Brig. Rahmadi, concurred. He said that he could only monitor what he saw.  

He said traffic police were often “kind and wise enough to let the three-in-one violators go. 

“We don’t always ticket them Most of the time, we only warn them and hope they will not do it again,” he said, adding that there could be more than ten violators a day. 

He complained that the violators usually got irritated when they were scolded by police officers.

“You know...that is typical of Jakarta riders. They know they are wrong, but they get angry when we rebuke them.”