Three police cars recently chased and stopped a taxi after receiving a call from a member of the public that a hand had been seen waving from the trunk of the car and suggesting the driver might have been kidnapping someone, only to find that the incident was the result of six Chinese tourists squeezing into one taxi.
The Hsinchu Police Duty Command Center said it received a call on Friday afternoon last week, with the caller saying he saw a taxi with its trunk half open and someone waving from inside. The caller said he suspected the taxi had kidnapped someone and the alleged victim was making some sort of SOS signal.
When asked for more -information, the caller said he saw the cabbie around Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口) on Provincial Highway No. 1, and also provided the vehicle’s license-plate number.
Once the call was routed to the Hsinchu County Police Bureau’s North Hsinchu Precinct, available personnel along Provincial Highway No. 1, from squad cars to heavy-duty motorcycles, were told to be on the lookout for the taxi in question.
On locating it, the police chased the taxi for 3km before finally forcing it to stop at the Hukou Expressway exit.
The police ordered the taxi driver out of the car, but when they asked who was in the trunk, they were told that it was a passenger. Police officers were further confounded when the passenger crawled out form the trunk and smiled shamefacedly.
The six Chinese passengers then related how they had been planning to visit friends in Hsinchu, but felt that taking two cabs was too expensive.
According to the taxi driver, surnamed Hsu (徐), the passengers insisted on squeezing all six of them into one car, with one riding shotgun, four squashed into the backseat and one in the trunk.
Concerned about ventilation, the passenger in the trunk persuaded Hsu to leave the trunk open, which he then held open with one hand.
Although relieved the case proved not to be a kidnapping, the police were quick to highlight the danger of overloading a vehicle and said Hsu would be fined NT$3,000 (US$103) in accordance with the stipulations of the Act Governing the Punishment of Violation of Road Traffic Regulations (道路交通管理處罰條例).
TRANSLATED BY JAKE CHUNG, STAFF WRITER
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