Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday said he would step up efforts to clamp down on drivers who fail to yield to pedestrians after a retired diplomat was hit by a taxi on the street last week and broke his arm.
“Taipei is a friendly city and we should show respect to pedestrians. We must address the issue and enforce measures to ensure that cars yield to pedestrians,” Hau said after presiding over a municipal meeting at Taipei City Hall.
Former ambassador to Guatemala Lu Yi-cheng (陸以正) was hit by a taxi on Friday last week when crossing in a pedestrian zone. He lambasted the taxi driver for ignoring the rights of pedestrians and urged the government to take the matter seriously.
Hau said the Taipei City Police Department’s Traffic Division and the city’s Department of Transportation would strengthen measures to improve the safety of pedestrians and clamp down on drivers who fail to yield to them.
According to regulations, drivers who fail to yield to pedestrians can be fined between NT$1,200 and NT$3,600.
The city government increased the number of traffic police to promote road safety ahead of the Deaflympics in September last year, but the efforts did not continue after the event concluded.
Director of the city’s traffic division Fang Yang-ning (方仰寧) said pedestrians have right of way and motorists would be fined for failing to yield — even when pedestrians violate traffic rules. The division will dispatch more police at major intersections to give tickets to drivers who violate the regulations.
Fang urged drivers to yield to pedestrians, while calling on pedestrians to stop at red lights.
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:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching