No matter the country, over regulation always opens up opportunities for quick thinking entrepreneurs to profit.
In Jakarta, poor men, women and children rent themselves out as traffic jockeys to help richer Jakartans get around the carpooling requirements:
With 20 million vehicles on the streets each day, and with far less pavement than in big cities like New York, Singapore and Tokyo, traffic in Jakarta is terrible. To reduce the number of cars on the road, lawmakers have designated several main arteries as what they call “Three in One zones.â€
During the morning and afternoon rush, you can’t drive there unless you have at least three people on board. That’s why, near the entrances to the zones, men, women and children line up – raising their index finger – offering to rent themselves as “traffic jockeys” to commuters in a hurry.”
Jockeys can make as $2.53 per ride. In a city where the poor live on less than a dollar a day, $2.50 is big money.
Photo by vaneea.