Don’t smoke aboard: A police officer shows a sticker banning smoking on board public transportation to a bus driver. A coalition of anti-smoking groups and the city transportation authorities put no-smoking stickers on 1,300 buses and public minivans at the Senen Bus Terminal in their campaign against smoking in public. (JP/Fikri Zaki Muhammadi)
Representatives from the Coalition for a Smoke-Free Jakarta say that they plastered 13,000 no-smoking stickers on public transport vehicles and bus stations on Tuesday.
The initiative, also backed by the Jakarta Transportation Agency and the University of Indonesia’s public health faculty, was launched at the Senen bus terminal in Senen, Central Jakarta.
The coalition has plans to install a total of 42,000 stickers on all buses and public minivans (angkot) and at the city’s 24 public transportation terminals.
Jakarta Transportation Agency secretary Drajad Adhyaksha told reporters that the agency wanted to ensure commuter comfort.
“Many have complained that no measures have been taken to prevent passengers and bus crew from smoking aboard public transportation. We need this to remind them,” Drajad said after the launch.
Money for the stickers came from the coalition and UI, Drajad said, calling on members of the general public to heed the no-smoking messages. “Society has to be aware of this so that they can punish the perpetrators socially. We will evaluate this in three months.”
Drajad said, perhaps overly optimistically, that he was looking forward to bus drivers themselves reprimand smokers on their vehicles in the future.
Tulus Abadi of the Indonesian Consumer Protection Foundation (YLKI), for example, has said that 57 percent of smokers on board public transportation vehicles were drivers or conductors.
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry has stated that cigarettes contain more than 4,000 kinds of toxins and 43 substances that can cause cancer, and that more than 43 million children in the nation could be considered “passive” smokers.
A 2010 Jakarta bylaw on smoking stipulates that all administrative institutions, officials and owners of public facilities are obliged to monitor and report their enforcement of the ban on public smoking.
Violators can be sentenced to jail for six months or to pay a fine of Rp 50 million (US$5,120).
Additional sanctions for those who violate the regulation include written warnings, mandatory closures and the revocation of city permits.
Jakarta Transportation Council chairman Azas Tigor Nainggolan said that stickers were a first step and that the campaign would depend on public support. “Unless the public supports this, we think that this will not be a success, because we surely cannot monitor the activities in all public transports in the city.”
The stickers contained a warning of the effects of smoking, a citation for the bylaw that bans smoking and a picture showing a patient with oral cancer.
Also on the stickers were SMS and call center numbers for commuters to report anyone violating the ban, stipulated under Gubernatorial Regulation No 88/2010.
