Illegal parking remains rampant in Jakarta, but the capital’s Transportation Department has been attempting to crack down on it more recently, mainly by deflating the tires of offenders.
This morning, officials from the Transport Dept. caused an uproar amongst a group of motorcycle taxi drivers waiting for orders in the area underneath the flyover on Jalan Satrio, in front of Mal Ambassador. The spot is a favorite for online ojeks to wait for customer orders in the area.
Officers from the South Jakarta Transport Dept. raided the ojek hangout and deflated the tires of numerous motorcycles as a warning to the drivers not to use the spot as a waiting area.
“The park had become a base for ojeks, so yes we acted decisively and deflated their tires. We often receive QLUE reports about them in the Karet Kuningan District,” said Christianto, head of South Jakarta’s Transport Dept as quoted by Detik. QLUE is a smartphone app that citizens can use to report problems to government officials.
Christianto also said that they had received several requests from neighborhood heads in the area to deal with the problem.
Some of the drivers apparently got into heated discussion with officials over the deflations.
While the Transport Dept. should be applauded for cracking down on illegal parking in any part of the city, we wonder if random raids and tire deflations will be enough to prevent the ojeks from just coming back tomorrow. They also need to consider that with so many ojeks on the roads, there should be designated places where they can wait without interrupting traffic, otherwise they will simply choose the place that is most convenient for them.
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