Efforts to ease chronic traffic jams in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, are boosting one of the city's more curious professions - car jockeys.
Thousands of Jakarta's poor have become paid passengers helping their wealthier countrymen beat government car-pooling regulations. Their typical trip is only a few hundred metres, for which they might earn 4,000 rupiah (50 cents).
In the early 1990s, Jakarta authorities closed some of the city's busiest roads to cars carrying fewer than three people for four hours during the peak morning period. The move gave birth to the "jockey", a term which is now firmly entrenched in Jakarta slang.
Grappling with worsening traffic, a new multi-million dollar bus service was introduced in January. To encourage users, the car pool policy was extended to cover three hours in the evening along its route.
Every day at 7 a.m. and again at 4 p.m., "car jockeys" take up positions on a road just off one of the city's busiest traffic circles.
One woman and her baby son stake out a patch close to the plush Sogo department store. "It's good for me because they have to pay something for the baby, and they get two people in one go," she says. ... - Reuters