In Reply to: Fighting Balinese Taxi Drivers posted by GaryD on Tuesday, 8. June 2010 at 06:09 Bali Time:
June 08, 2010
Made Arya Kencana
Bali Taxi Wars Turn Ugly, Drivers Attack Blue Bird
Denpasar. The rivalry between a leading taxi operator and a local taxi association on Bali turned ugly on Monday, with hundreds of drivers attacking and vandalizing 14 Blue Bird taxis.
The mob, drivers from the Bali Tourism Service Association (PJWB), went on a violent rampage in Denpasar, damaging vehicles belonging to the Blue Bird taxi company.
'Nine cars were damaged at our office, two in Kuta and three in Sanur,' said Teguh Wijayanto, a spokesman for Praja Bali Transportation, which operates Blue Bird taxis in Bali.
The PJWB accuses the company of exceeding the agreed quota of taxis and of unfairly entering the Bali market.
The angry mob also attacked two television journalists and damaged their camera and vandalized the front of the provincial legislative council office.
One of the injured reporters, Riadis Sulhi, who works for broadcaster Indosiar, filed a report with the Denpasar police.
Blue Bird is known for its high service standards and security. Many passengers opt to use it because of its reputation for reliability, and because customers are urged to report any problems to the company.
The local associations, in contrast, are sometimes accused of unfair pricing and coercion. Local taxis are often more expensive than Blue Bird.
After the street rampage, the mob took the protest to the governor's office, where they vandalized trees, before moving to the legislative council building.
Hundreds of police were deployed in front of the governor's office. They used water cannon to disperse the mob.
PJWB chairman Gusti Made Oka Sukranita said that the company had agreed to limit its taxis to 600 'but now the Blue Bird fleet numbers 750.'
Sukranita also said Blue Bird had unfairly entered the market by using Praja Bali Transport and the trade name Bali Taksi, although its emblem and the color of its fleets were those of Blue Bird.
Made Arjaya, of the provincial legislative council, and the head of the Bali Transportation office, Made Santha, met the protesters to discuss the grievances. .
'The agreement is for a team to immediately work to put order into issuing taxi permits,' Santha said after the meeting. But the protesters still threatened to attack the headquarters of Praja Bali Transport in Denpasar.
Meanwhile, the vice president of the Blue Bird Group, Noni Purnomo, said Bali Taksi had a permit issued by the Bali governor in 1994. She also said the Bali Taksi name and logo, which she agreed was similar to the Blue Bird emblem, had been registered in March 2008.
The Bali chapters of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) and the Indonesian Television Journalists' Association in Bali condemned the violence.
'We urge the association to apologize and pay compensation for the damage,' Rofiqi Hasan of AJI said.
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Comments
ChiefK12310:40 AM June 8, 2010
This is so sad. Blue Bird is a company with high standards and good customer service. They're attacked by a bunch of thugs because it's easier for them to be mindless rampaging vandals than to simply improve the quality of their own product. Hopefully this outrage will help break their hold on the Bali taxi market. Those guys are criminals, plain and simple, and they intimidate anybody who doesn't want to use their services. I've had several bad experiences with them in Bali, as I'm sure many tourists have.
Roland9:49 AM June 8, 2010
Grievance of the "Bali Tourism Service Association"?
These taxi drivers are acting purely like a Mafia organization, trying to exclude certain high potential areas for a decent taxi company as Blue Bird (e.g. Matahari Square, certain nightspots e.g. Double Six - I'm not sure if this still exists though, Jalan Legian...), extorting tourists as well as residents alike and display just with their destructive actions of yesterday AGAIN what they are!
I remember that even 1994 already certain areas were forcefully (!) tabooed to legal taxi operators.
After this protest the local government should do the only logical thing they should have done already years ago: revoke the taxi licences of all private taxi operators, with exception of those who conform to transportation standards.
Kuta was able after protests by tourists to remove annoying illegal street vendors and also removed a few years back all bar outlets installed at Kuta beach, even the "Kuta Cowboys" which are actually part of the special flair of Kuta, especially for single Japanese ladies (but not only!) came into a negative spotlight.
So why not these thugs?
Actually it is well known that Balinese tourist police likes to make driver licence sweepings, but only for rental car drivers - others getting waved ahead, to make their 50,000 Rp. per car, might there be (just VERY remotely!) that they get their daily "appreciation" from these taxi operators to ensure their territories?