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<b>Jakarta.</b>  Following intense criticism that his daily motorcade clogged up the Cibubur area of East Jakarta whenever it passed by, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Monday started leaving for work earlier.

“The president left Cikeas [Bogor] at 5 a.m. this morning,” Julian Aldrin Pasha, a presidential spokesman, told reporters at the State Palace. “He arrived here [at work] at about 6 a.m.”

Julian said the president would make the early departure a habit.

“He will try not to create traffic jams. There’s already enough of that in the morning,” he said.

The move comes after Hendra NS, chief editor of an automotive magazine, criticized the president’s motorcade for clogging up traffic near his residence in Cibubur in a letter published in a national newspaper last Friday.

He also described a run-in he had with the presidential motorcade police, or Patwal.

“After paying to enter the inner-city toll road, I heard sirens and security officers shouting over a megaphone for me and other drivers to pull over,” he wrote.

“But there was another order for me to move to the right. When I went right, a Patwal officer got angry and told me to go to the left. When I went left, he ordered me to go to the right. Confused and panicked, I stopped and waited for the next order. A Patwal officer in front of me got out of the car and hit my car.”

He said the officer threatened to shoot him and intimidated him for 10 minutes without giving him a chance to speak.

Julian said the incident was being investigated and that the palace was working on better coordination between the military secretary, presidential security guard, motorcycle police and the National Police.

“There will be a new regulation on how to secure the president in the future,” he said. “The president listens to all advice, including from the public. We will choose the best option.”