Some Indonesians will do almost anything to avoid a traffic ticket. Last week, a woman was filmed biting the hand of an officer who gave her a ticket for not wearing a motorcycle helmet – though to be fair it turns out she has had a history of mental illness.
We’re not sure if the same excuse can be applied to any of the motorcyclists who got caught illegally driving on the Kasablanka flyover in Jakarta, but their idea of forming a blockade on the elevated road and halting traffic in an attempt to avoid the police waiting for them at the exit was certainly not the most intelligent – though in the end it proved partially successful.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfruPmyFJHx/?hl=en&taken-by=jktinfo
This video was originally taken this morning at around 9 am by Instagram user @henuakbar from the 17th floor of the Sahid Sudirman Center building. Like all elevated roads in Jakarta, motorcycles are banned from entering the Kasablanka flyover (with clear signs indicating this at its entrance) for safety reasons, but obviously many motorcyclists choose to ignore that law and risk their safety in order to shave some time off of their commute.
Perhaps worst of all, their impromptu plan of stopping at the top of the flyover and blocking all traffic was actually somewhat successful, as the huge number of motorcyclists and the relatively small number of police officers meant only some unlucky drivers ended up receiving tickets while others were able to abscond scot-free.
“We were only partially succeeded (at ticketing them), some escaped but we ticketed more than 75 offenders,” said Budiyanto, the head of the Jakarta Traffic Police Enforcement Sub-directorate, as quoted by BeritaSatu.
Budiyanto said that the motorcyclists stopping at the top of the flyover started off small when the first ones noticed the police waiting for them below, but their numbers quickly swelled as more arrived, soon leading to the situation in the video. It took police officers coming through the traffic from the opposite side to finally get them to move.
This isn’t even the first time a police trap at the end of the Kasablanka flyover has led to dangerous situations. In July, dozens of motorcyclists were filmed turning around and driving against traffic on the narrow elevated road in order to avoid getting ticketed. That incident occurred just one day after motorcycle taxi drivers for various ride-hailing companies had created a blockade at the flyover’s exit to “protest” the police setting up ticket traps there, arguing that they were somehow unjust.
