Cracking down on underage drivers will be one of the focuses of traffic police in Bali, as Indonesia goes into its annual Operation Zebra, where road rules compliance gets amped up in different regions across the archipelago nation.
Kicking off on Tuesday, Operation Zebra 2018 will run for the next two weeks in Bali, until Nov. 12.
Although remote and the smallest of Bali’s regency, Bangli Police are taking the operation seriously.
Marking the start of the operation, police in Bangli Regency held a rally with the department’s officers as well as officials from the regency transportation department, municipal police, and school security, at police headquarters, lead by Bangli Police Chief Comr. Agus Tri Waluyo.
The purpose of Operation Zebra is to reduce the number of traffic violations and most importantly, the amount of road accidents, Waluyo told Bali Post.
According to the Bangli Police department’s data, the number of traffic accidents during the implementation of Operation Zebra 2017 showed a 41 percent reduction, compared to the 2016 operation. Likewise, the number of fatalities also decreased down to 67 percent.
There are seven main offenses police in Bangli will be looking at, says Waluyo. This includes people using mobile phones while driving, drivers who go down the wrong direction of the street’s traffic flow, motorbikes with more than two people, drivers under the influence of alcohol or drugs, drivers not using SNI standard helmets, drivers going excessively fast, and underage drivers—yes Indonesia does have a minimum driving age of 17 for obtaining driver’s licenses.
“We urge all community members to comply with traffic regulations for mutual safety,” Waluyo said.
Meanwhile, police on the island’s capital Denpasar have been netting violators in checkpoints on Jl. Gator Subroto Timur. Within just two days of running the operation, 12 violators, six of whom didn’t have the proper driver’s license or registration, were written up. Two motorbikes were secured as evidence, as a result of the Rai, Bali Police’s public relations told Radar Bali.
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