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Police Take Aim at Jakarta's Roadside Romantics
Bayu Marhaenjati | January 16, 2012

A toll road flyover in Jakarta. (Photo: Yudhi Sukma Wijaya, JG) A toll road flyover in Jakarta. (Photo: Yudhi Sukma Wijaya, JG)
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Comments

Normalaatsra
4:53am Jan 18, 2012

Walking there is much easier, but we're secluded from that kind of activity on all of Jakarta's streets. Sad news Jakarta..

didikarjadi
10:15pm Jan 16, 2012

Why don't they just go to the city's parks like romantic young couples do all over the World?

facepalm
6:47pm Jan 16, 2012

I appear to have inadvertently linked my previous comment to the wrong clip. Let's try again...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc-hGEzjHEg

jusdogin
6:42pm Jan 16, 2012

perhaps if we had some parks or pubic spaces tongue action on the bridge would not be a prob

Kesiangan
6:32pm Jan 16, 2012

Now we know why the police are so busy.

At night, cleared of smog and congestion, Jakarta’s flyovers transform themselves into dating hotspots where young couples can park their motorbikes and flirt or enjoy a kiss in relative privacy.

But the city’s police are looking to put an end to the roadside romance, with plans for stepped-up patrols to scare off any couples illegally stopped on the elevated thruways.

“Parking purposefully on the flyovers is forbidden,” Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said on Monday. “Besides endangering themselves, it also endangers other road users. Their existence clearly disturbs traffic.”

The Kalibata flyover in South Jakarta is one popular spot, attracting dozens of couples on weekend nights who park their bikes along the edge of the roadway and take in the view of the city’s skyline.

The large number of potential customers also attracts food carts and hawkers.

Recently, the police and city hung a large banner on one side of the flyover reading “Don’t Date Here.”

“If we don’t warn them, the number [of couples] will increase,” Rikwanto said. “We will instruct the district and subdistrict police to take action against them.”

Rikwanto said patrols would be intensified after sundown, during peak “dating time.”

“We will tell them nicely,” he said. “Hopefully, if they [the patrols] are conducted intensively, the [couples] will not repeat it again.”

Besides the Kalibata flyover, flyovers in Jagakarsa, South Jakarta, and Pasar Rebo, East Jakarta, also attract large numbers of people on the weekends.