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It's the drivers, not the law

Huang Jui-ming (黃瑞明) must be living on a different island to me ("Unions lead fight against tyranny," June 14, page 8). If you just go for a walk for a couple of hours, you will see that a vast number of Taiwan-ese have no thought for driving laws, their own safety or the safety of others.

Traffic lights, different lines on the roads and crosswalks have no meaning to a huge num-ber of drivers here. Let me say for the record that it is sad that a person died and another got burned. Yes it's sad, but it was of their own doing. Instead of using that as an excuse to make comments like, "cannibalistic legal system" and "is not above randomly issuing traffic tickets ...," we should consider what they were doing wrong, and look at these two cases as examples of how warped and dangerous the thinking of motorists here can be.

The time has come to stop the everyday stupidity shown on the streets and bring some level of safety to the people.

In Taiwan, when you criticize someone in public, even when he was in the wrong, he'll get angry, instead of thinking of what he did wrong. There is virtually no thought of being res-ponsible for your own actions.

A case in point: My wife and I were crossing the street. We were about two-thirds of the way across, when a taxi driver turned right, pointed his car at my wife and accelerated. If I hadn't pulled my wife back, the taxi would have hit her. I hit the back of the taxi. The driver stopped, got out and started yelling at me and trying to hit me, even after I told him in Chinese that he almost ran over my wife.

This is not the first time that a person has pointed his motor vehicle at me or someone I was walking with. The idea, "Get out of my way or I will hit you with my car," is pathetic, but com-mon in Taiwan. Taxis, small delivery trucks, construction vehicles and a large number of your ordinary citizens drive with this mentality.

Is anyone other than me sick of being a walking target to anyone in a vehicle?

Instead of restraining those responsible for enforcing traffic laws, we should be pushing them to make the streets safer and punish those who refuse to drive safely.

Lee Shackelford
Linkou

I find it ironic that people criticize the government for unfairly raising revenues by issuing traffic fines. To my eyes, motorists here seem to have little fear of tickets.

On a daily basis, I see people run red lights up to two seconds after the change. That's not to mention people who blatantly jump the green. So where are all the cops who are supposedly issuing tickets for illegal right turns on red? They must exist, but do they have a mandate to only issue one type of ticket? Are they automated cameras?

Perhaps what is needed is a review of the entire scheme of infractions and penalties, followed by publicity of a new and better scheme. That shouldn't be too tough to muster.

I'm sure some types of fines should be issued more, rather than less, often. And some penalties should probably be increased. Of course, the cooperation of the police force will be needed too.

I also read in your paper that traffic accidents killed some 11 times more people than did SARS during the three-month run of that disease. Perhaps here we could find a slogan for the needed publicity. Something along the lines of a national epidemic of reckless driving that kills more than SARS.

Peter Dearman
Taipei

Traitorous behavior

Your editorial ("Kao represents Beijing, not Taiwan," June 17, page 8) reads like a fairy tale. It is inconceivable that PFP Legislator Kao Ming-chien (高明見) represents China in an international SARS conference in Malaysia.

I hope the government does not have to pay for his travel expenses.

Kao is not qualified to be a lawmaker. He behaves like a law-breaker. He would face execution if Taiwan were still under the martial law era of former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) or Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國).

It will be interesting to know how PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) and his running mate, KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), justify Kao's behavior. If they cannot give a reasonable justification, they can at least advise Kao to change his name to Gao Mingjian and move to China.

Charles Hong
Columbus, Ohio
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