NPA drops law changes

A senior official from the National Police Administration (NPA) announced yesterday that his office would not pass on a proposed amendment to traffic regulations to the Legislative Yuan, after the proposed change generated a public uproar.

"The NPA decided to withdraw its plan to overhaul the Road Traffic Management and Punishment Law (道路交通管理處罰條例), after we found that this was not the right time to make changes," said NPA Traffic Division Director Ho Kuo-jung (何國榮).

The police administration announced on Tuesday that they were considering asking for stricter punishments for drunk drivers.

Ruling opposition lawmakers expressed their disagreement with the planned revisions when they interpellated Ho at the legislature's Home and Nations Committee meeting yesterday.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative leader Tsai Huan-lan (蔡煌瑯) argued that the proposed punishments were too harsh.

"The planned punishment related to drunk motorists goes against social conventions. It is also inhumane and violates the spirit of the constitution," Tsai said.

The revisions proposed by the NPA suggested that not only motorists found with alcohol in their bloodstream would be fined, but persons providing alcohol to motorists testing 0.25mg of alcohol per liter and above would also face fines of up to NT$12,000.

The NPA also contended that providers of alcoholic drinks to drunk drivers included restaurants or friends of the intoxicated motorist.

Furthermore, adult passengers of drunk drivers would be subject to fines ranging from NT$3,000 to NT$12,000, according to the proposed amendment. Ho explained that adult passengers should shoulder the responsibility of letting a drunk driver operate his or her vehicle.

DPP said they endorse more discussions on revising current traffic laws, in order to lower the number of people who are killed in accidents caused by drunk drivers.

"But we disagree with a radical change of the law. We hope that the administration would be more cautious when mapping out the revision and bring it to the public only after extensive discussions," said DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁).

People First Party (PFP) Legislator Tsao Yuan-chang (曹原彰) echoed the DPP lawmakers' point of view.

"It is unreasonable to punish people providing alcohol to drunk drivers," he said.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Cho Po-yuan (卓伯源) said that the NPA's premature announcement exemplified the discord between the government agency and policy makers.

"Subordinates of the Ministry of Justice [MOI] should review their incongruity, which led to an improper announcement of policy overhaul before the matter has been settled," he said.

Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲) acknowledged that he disagreed with the proposed penalties.

"I support most parts of the opinions flighted in the proposed amendment, except the idea of punishing alcohol providers and people urging others to drink," Yu told lawmakers.

He said the idea merely acted as advice for promoting traffic safety and was not a proposal for formulating a revised policy.