Owners of large-engine motorcycles took their complaints to the streets again yesterday, in spite of the fact that the Ministry of Transportation and Communications announced this week that their motorbikes can be operated on expressways starting in November.
Following a demonstration in April, the ministry said motorists would be permitted to operate large-engine motorcycles on expressways as soon as this month.
The ministry later announced that the policy would not take effect until near the end of the year.
PHOTO: CNA
The announcement has upset motorcycle enthusiasts, who said they would take to the expressways on their bikes before November despite the ongoing ban.
More than 1,000 motorists gathered in the Guandu Temple parking lot in Taipei yesterday morning to show their frustration with what they called slow progress in amending the Road Traffic Management and Punishment Law (
Yesterday's event drew the attention of the Directorate-General of Highways, as well as the National Police Administration (NPA). Both dispatched representatives to meet the protesters and discuss their grievances.
Deputy Director-General of the Directorate-General of Highways Chen Chun-hsiung (
Ho Kuo-rong (
In addition, license plates must be mounted on the front and back of motorcycles to make them more easily visible for police.
As many motorcyclists have complained about the difficulty of mounting a license plate on the front of a motorcycle, Ho said that the administration would let motorists make their own license plates. Motorists may use either soft or hard materials and the license plate numbers may be written either horizontally or vertically. The license plate must be 18cm long and 8cm wide.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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