The Consumers’ Foundation yesterday said recent inspections highlighted problems with a brand of bicycle helmets and that it has advised the authorities to order the products be taken off the shelves.
In recent years, with cycling becoming a favorite pastime, bicycle helmets have become an important matter for consumers.
The consumer group teamed up with the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection (BSMI) last month to conduct product safety testing on different bicycle helmets sold at supermarkets, retail chains and specialty stores nationwide.
The safety testing conducted on the helmets included product composition, appearance, impact attenuation, strength of the chin strap, weight and product labeling, foundation chairman Hsieh Tien-jen (謝天仁) said.
While most helmets passed safety tests, inspectors found that one brand of helmet, GiD, manufactured by Shang Yang Industrial Co, failed the chin strap strength test.
Inspectors tested the strap and buckles by putting the helmet on a crash-test dummy, then applying pressure to the straps for two minutes. The straps and buckles were then checked for breakage, cracks, distortion and malfunction.
While the nine other brands of helmets that were inspected passed the test, the GiD helmet’s buckles broke.
The foundation said that because the buckles on the chin-strap broke too easily under pressure, it could be dangerous if a cyclist had an accident while wearing the helmet.
The bureau has ordered retailers to take the substandard helmet off the shelves immediately and investigate the reasons for the product’s poor performance, or face fines of between NT$100,000 (US$3,100) and NT$1 million.
Bureau inspectors will also increase the proportion of products made by Shang Yang that undergo safety testing.
Bureau officials said consumers should look for product safety stickers issued by the authorities when buying bicycle helmets. They should also buy new helmets rather than used ones and try them on to ensure a proper fit.
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
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater