In less than 30 minutes, the legislature's Transportation Committee passed a resolution yesterday to amend Article 31 of the Road Traffic Management and Punishment Law (道路交通規則管理處罰條例) to require everyone in a passenger car on freeways and expressways to buckle their seat belts.
If the amendment is passed by the legislature, drivers of private vehicles could be fined if they or any of their passengers, including those in the back seat, fail to fasten their seat belts before they hit the road.
At present the law only requires the driver and front-seat passengers to wear seat belts. Violators face fines of NT$1,500 if caught without a seatbelt, although the fines rise to between NT$3,000 and NT$6,000 when driving on freeways and expressways.
Since the ministry requires that vehicles manufactured after 1991 must have seat belts installed in the back seats as well as the front, the Transportation Committee decided that cars manufactured before 1991 should be exempt from the amendment.
The amendment has been supported by both legislators and government officials.
However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Yu-ting (王昱婷) suggested that passengers also be fined for not wearing their seat belts. Wang said the amount of the fine should be determined by the number of people inside the vehicle who were not wearing their seat belts, rather than a set fine that would only punish the driver.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Tsai Duei (
The committee passed the amendment in the wake of a traffic accident on Saturday that left Shaw Hsiao-ling (
At press time yesterday, Shaw remained in intensive care in Chi Mei Hospital in Tainan.
The amendment was approved by the Procedure Committee last fall. The Transportation Committee was not scheduled to review it yesterday, but Wang proposed changing the agenda and the motion was quickly seconded by other committee members.
The amendment had been drafted by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Tsiao-long (
Chen said that he was napping in his car when his chauffeur hit an electric pole. The right side of Chen's face hit the B pillar, a shaft placed between the car door in the front and the one at the back. His right eyeball popped out of the socket, the bones around the socket were partially damaged and his upper cheek was turned inside out. He required extensive reconstructive surgery.
The committee's resolution also stated that the Ministry of Transportation and Communications would have a three-month period after the amendment was passed to promote the new policy before implementing it.
A statement by the Department of Railways and Highways said that a person is 25 times more likely to die in a traffic accident if he or she were ejected from a vehicle in rather than remaining inside.
Research by the Legislative Organic Laws and Statute Bureau last year found that the death rate of motorists not wearing seat belts was more than three times that of those wearing seat belts.
also see story:
`Apple Daily' sorry for publishing gory crash photograph
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS