Highway bus drivers will be fined NT$90,000 and have their drivers’ license suspended if they are responsible for accidents in which more than 10 passengers are injured or that lead to the death of more than three passengers, the Department of Railways and Highways said yesterday.
Aside from bus drivers, the department said that the bus company would also be held liable for the accidents.
The administrative authority of highways could impose a penalty of between NT$9,000 and NT$90,000.
Depending on the severity of the infraction, a bus company could also be forced to suspend all its operations.
The department said it had set specific standards to determine the penalties for various types of accidents, as the administrative authority has had problems delivering consistent rulings.
DIFFERENTIATED
It has differentiated between general traffic accidents and major traffic accidents.
In each category, the penalty is set based on the number of deaths and injuries in each accident and the driver’s record of violations.
First-time offenders, for example, will be required to pay NT$10,000 if the accident results in injuries to two passengers.
The department said that these standards were administrative orders, which can be executed without getting the approval of the Legislative Yuan.
AMENDMENT
In related news, the department has also drafted an amendment to the Railway Law (鐵路法), which would substantially increase the penalty for misbehavior by passengers.
Dangerous behavior such as jumping off a train before it comes to a complete stop would now be punishable with a fine of NT$7,500, up from NT$1,500.
Passengers bringing pets on board without securing prior approval or following any specific regulation, smoking in non-smoking sections, or littering could be fined between NT$1,500 and NT$7,500.
In the past, fines were between NT$300 and NT$3,000.
The new penalties will have to be approved by the Legislative Yuan before they can come into force.
REJECTED
Yesterday, the department also rejected a proposal by the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) that suggested setting a different rate for passengers who choose to share a cab departing from THSRC stations.
The company said the proposal was meant to encourage more service operators to dispatch more taxis to the THSRC stations to help transport passengers.
The department, however, said the cab fare should not be different because of the carpool system.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
RSS