Taipei leads the country with more than 46 percent of the nation’s invalid traffic tickets issued by the Taipei police, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) caucus said yesterday.
The errors came in all sorts of “ridiculous” forms, such as fining a nine-year-old boy for drunk driving, citing a driver for speeding at more than 1,000kph and fining a motorcyclist for not wearing a seat belt, TSU Legislator Huang Wen-ling (黃文玲) told a press conference.
“This shows that Taipei traffic police must dramatically improve the quality of their law enforcement,” Huang said.
Taipei traffic police issued 1,383 erroneous tickets, either by miswriting or citing the wrong law, between January and June this year, accounting for more than 46 percent of the national total of 3,018 bad tickets and ranking first among the nation’s 21 cities and counties, according to statistics Huang provided.
The statistics also showed that the situation is getting worse, since the 3,018 bad tickets written in the first half of this year was almost on par with the 3,339 bad tickets for the whole of last year.
One in every 607 traffic tickets in Taipei was written improperly, Huang said.
Of the five special municipalities, Taipei was followed by New Taipei City (新北市), Greater Kaohsiung, Greater Taichung and Greater Tainan, Huang said.
Despite the ticketing error, many people decided to pay the fines anyway because they did not want to go through the complicated appeals process and waiting period, she said.
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
Nipah virus infection is to be officially listed as a category 5 notifiable infectious disease in Taiwan in March, while clinical treatment guidelines are being formulated, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. With Nipah infections being reported in other countries and considering its relatively high fatality rate, the centers on Jan. 16 announced that it would be listed as a notifiable infectious disease to bolster the nation’s systematic early warning system and increase public awareness, the CDC said. Bangladesh reported four fatal cases last year in separate districts, with three linked to raw date palm sap consumption, CDC Epidemic Intelligence
Two Taiwanese prosecutors were questioned by Chinese security personnel at their hotel during a trip to China’s Henan Province this month, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The officers had personal information on the prosecutors, including “when they were assigned to their posts, their work locations and job titles,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. On top of asking about their agencies and positions, the officers also questioned the prosecutors about the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, a pact that serves as the framework for Taiwan-China cooperation on combating crime and providing judicial assistance, Liang
US climber Alex Honnold left Taiwan this morning a day after completing a free-solo ascent of Taipei 101, a feat that drew cheers from onlookers and gained widespread international attention. Honnold yesterday scaled the 101-story skyscraper without a rope or safety harness. The climb — the highest urban free-solo ascent ever attempted — took just more than 90 minutes and was streamed live on Netflix. It was covered by major international news outlets including CNN, the New York Times, the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal. As Honnold prepared to leave Taiwan today, he attracted a crowd when he and his wife, Sanni,
RSS