Truemors
Digg
del.icio.us
AddToAny
is reporting from
Member
NP Rank:
NP Rank:
Squat - Ride - Busted - Dyed!
by Swan | February 10, 2008 at 01:25 pm | 428 views | 4 comments
(CNN) -- The risk of being jolted by 1,500 volts of electricity hasn't scared them off. Neither have fears of falling off the speeding electric trains.
Thousands of passengers ride on overloaded trains
in Jakarta every day.So Indonesian railway officials on Monday will unleash a new weapon on commuters who squat on top of railway cars: spray them with colored dye, a local newspaper reported.
When one travels by train in Indonesia, a seat is never guaranteed - in fact, unless you began your ride early in the train's scheduled run, you're unlikely to obtain a seat at all in the sardine-can that is known as commuter travel.
Those who are unable to afford a ticket, or perhaps those who only want to avoid the stifling congestion inside the railway cars have come up with a solution - riding on top of the railway cars!
Officials have tried ways to deter these "roof-riders" to no avail and have now come up with yet another solution to prevent the roof-riders from hitching a ride.
The plan is to spray them with dye as the train departs, so that they can easily be identified by officials at the next train station.
"We will confiscate their IDs and give them a ticket," Akhmand Sujadi, regional spokesman for the transit agency Kerata Api, told the newspaper. "We will send a copy of the ticket to their family, their local neighborhood unit head, their employer, or, if they're students, their headmasters."
Roof-riders are only able to reclaim their IDs by "writing a letter regarding their behavior, to be signed by the person who received their ticket."
With 53 roof-riders dying in the past two years alone, strategies have to be discussed and employed to deter these people from tempting death the way they do twice each day. I'm sure that wives and daughters must worry each day about whether or not fathers and husbands will return each night.
While the latest strategy might seem a little extreme, at least it's not a violent one and for that the powers-that-be should be commended.
One can only imagine with horror what might have happened to these roof-riders in China.
Source and Image Source:
News Tools
February 10, 2008 at 01:25 pm by Swan, 428 views, 4 comments
Add a comment
Comments (4)
at 14:01 on February 10th, 2008
It's like those exploding ink packets in bank bags.
at 15:46 on February 10th, 2008
Hi Jordan,
True - though I have to wonder how long it will be before the roof-riders will combat that move, by wearing sheets of plastic such as those giant garbage bags, to shield themselves from from the dye.
They could easily toss them off the train before their train stop too.
Perhaps they should have put a few more of the dye jets actually on top of the train - *laughs* then officials could identify them even more easily by their luminous green colored shoes and socks!
I just imagined a cartoon in my head of 20 or so train riders all hopping around on top of the train - trying to miss the dye jets. ;)
~ Swan
at 16:20 on February 10th, 2008
Yeah, I was thinking how one could make one of those emergency raincoats out of a bin bag... or commute in one of those paper painting suits.
at 21:24 on February 10th, 2008
Cool story!
Hopefully the dye isn't toxic-- although I suppose that since they already face so many dangers it doesn't matter that much. I found this old article in the village voice about "subway surfing" which actually occurs in NY as well. http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0032,duffy,17140,1.html
s.mc