Traffic intolerance
I do not totally agree that increasing fines would address the lack of discipline on roads.
I guess the fines are high enough and the laws are good, too. The problem is, if nobody enforces them, people laugh at the police.
There is a new bus stop where I live. Seniors, women and children are thankful for it. The problem is that many people use it for parking; and not just for a moment, for days.
This behavior makes me upset. The police pass the bus stop often, but ignore the illegal parking.
At our convenience store, people park in the forbidden zone, which is on a curve so nobody can see the traffic. The police do not care. The majority ignores red lights.
There should be cameras at major intersections, then there would be no need for police.
The streets are full of abandoned cars that have been there for years. People throw old scooters away. The police do not care.
The best laws are useless if nobody enforces them.
The police should confiscate cars and scooters from failing drivers and take their licenses for a while.
The reason that there are so many traffic problems is that people sit their license test on closed roads. For license tests in Europe, people must drive on public streets, highways and at night.
When I drive on the highway, it is always the same disaster: Slow cars drive in the left-hand lane, trucks and buses occupy the middle lane and the right-hand lane is almost empty.
Instead of driving and checking the situation on the roads, many policemen just sit in their comfortable BMWs.
The reason for the problems on the highways is not too many cars, it is ignorance that slows traffic.
To Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) credit, the capital’s traffic can be trusted, but in the south or the countryside, I have to fight to survive.
Then there are the scooter riders. I have never seen such reckless people — riding at night with no lights on, drunk, speeding, and three or four people on one scooter. I do not mind minor failings, but the extreme failings on Taiwan’s roads scares and upsets me. It greatly disappoints me.
Nobert Sladek
Taoyuan
Personal air purifiers
At a news conference on April 28 to disclose financial records for his mayoral campaign last year, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) said that smear campaigns against him have gone so far that some people even wonder if his wife, Lee Chia-fen (李佳芬), is wearing an emerald necklace worth millions of New Taiwan dollars.
Han said that the necklace is actually a personal air purifier, but the attacks are so outrageous that he has had to boost security for his family.
As an environmentalist, I am not interested in whether Lee is wearing emeralds worth millions, because that would be her business, but I do have an opinion on personal air purifiers, which they both wear.
If the air pollution in Kaohsiung is so bad, the mayor should tackle the issue rather than simply wearing an air purifier. Instead of only caring about himself, Han should improve the environment of the whole city.
This scenario reminds me of the time when I worked at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and accompanied then-EPA minister Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) to Kaohsiung to inspect a dengue fever outbreak.
Every time I took out mosquito repellent for him, he would refuse it, shaking his head or waving it off. There is a world of difference between Han and Hau.
During Han’s mayoral campaign, he proposed that the city’s population be increased to 5 million within the next decade, a statement that sparked controversy. The mayor and his wife equipping themselves with personal air purifiers is contradictory to his proposal.
Anyone who wants to move to Kaohsiung and settle down should only consider doing so after Han and his wife remove the air purifiers from around their necks.
Chang Huei-he
New Taipei City
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