Plis Deh Jakarta!

The city government and the market operator PD Pasar Jaya are at odds on who has the right to manage Blok M Square’s parking lot.

Whatever happens, I’m pretty sure they’re just haggling over money, and never guaranteeing the security of the cars. motorcycles and whatever items within those cars, like anywhere else in Jakarta. Ironically, the largest parking operator in Jakarta is called Secure Parking.

So the city regulators have found an unlicensed, over-charging parking area smack in the middle of the city, for years somehow overlooked by everyone – the police headquarters.

Hey, give those guys a break! It’s not enough that they get paid very small salaries, the police are underrespected and often ridiculed as well. What’s a few rupiah from parking fees, eh?

The government has instituted an interesting program on a few public streets, where if a driver parks there for five times, they get one day parking free. All they have to do is show the parking stubs, which they will have to ask from the parking attendants.

The move is supposedly to see how much actual parking money is made from those streets, as it is suspected a lot of the money is not submitted to the government.

Parking attendants are not welcome to the new rule, because it entails more work, like handing out and punching parking stubs.

Oh yes, how tiresome. Not only do they have to guard all the cars (erm… do they?), blow on a whistle loudly, now they have to hand out small pieces of paper.

For whatever reasons, these two vehicles – one of them a military police vehicle – are parked in the middle of the highway. Sumbitted by iiiccchhhaaa.

Two people who had their car clamped by security due to illegal parking lost their temper and thus pulled a gun to the security officers. One is an intelligence officer, and the other purpotedly a former police officer. They were on their way to pick up a DPR member at the airport, who is coincidentally their mother.

My dear intelligence officer, where is your intelligence?

Parking is such a premium in Jakarta. Well, not to Tokyo levels, but even small side streets have people lazing around waiting for a dupe to get in his car, so that they can ‘guide’ the car safely out of the parallel parking space and get paid at least IDR 2000 for it (that’s around USD 0.35), which is enough to buy the next cigarrette while lazing around.

Jump to this picture:

Look a little closer to the small sign at the bottom of the picture:

The sign roughly says ‘Please don’t park here’ for non-visitors of the store.

Jakarta Common Wisdom #189:

Jangan ke Kemang atau ke Citos kalo malem Minggu. Nyiksa kaki yg nginjek kopling, ngabisin bensin, ngabisin duit karena makanan mahal, dan kebuang waktu banyak buat cari parkir. Kalo naik taksi juga susah pulangnya, dan  lebih mungkin daripada tidak, ga ada temen yang bisa ditebengin karena arah-arahnya berjauhan (seperti: kayaknya kalau mau ke Rawamangun ga lewat Cinere deh).

Mending ke mall yang lain, misalnya Plaza Senayan atau Senayan City. Eh jangan juga, nanti topik posting berikutnya “Jangan ke Plaza Senayan atau Senayan City” karena semua orang pindah ke situ.

Atau mau malem mingguan nyatronin mall yang mungkin lebih ‘sepi’? Blok M Plaza kali? Jangan salah… lebih rame lagi.

Udahlah, yang lagi ngetren sekarang, cari tempat gelap trus duduk di atas motor, ngobrol.