A bicycle racing competition held in downtown Taipei on Saturday came under fire safety after some of its participants were accused of violating traffic regulations while they raced around the city.
Organized by energy drink manufacturer Red Bull, participants in the contest, titled “Red Bull Street Knights (城市騎士任務),” were tasked with collecting signatures from five different locations across the city with the first three contestants to complete the mission awarded a trophy. There was no time limit or designated routes for the event.
Footage recorded by the dashboard cameras of several drivers showed groups of racers swerving around cars, running red lights and riding against traffic, drawing harsh criticism from the public and netizens, who accused them of putting the lives of others at risk for a game.
Among those infuriated by the event was National Chengchi University associate professor of law Liu Hung-en (劉宏恩), who posted a message on his Facebook page on Tuesday denouncing the organizer and demanding that it issue a public apology for endangering road safety.
“Such reckless behavior [by the event’s participants] stood in violation of Article 185 of the Criminal Code, which states that endangering the safety of public traffic is a criminal offense,” Liu said.
“The organizer appears to have purposefully defied the law by sitting back and letting the participating bikers race around the streets recklessly, and then rewarding those who rode the fastest,” Liu said, adding that more companies could copy this behavior if Red Bull was not punished.
In response, Red Bull said in a statement on Tuesday that the event was aimed at promoting the beauty of Taipei and did not offer any monetary incentives to cyclists participating in the race.
“Although we have yet to receive any complaints pertaining to the event or learn about any injuries incurred during the race, we respect opinions from all sectors of society,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, the Taipei City Government Department of Sports said that organizers of racing events should notify the city government in advance so that the authorities could better ensure road safety by dispatching personnel to regulate traffic.
The Taipei City Police Department’s Traffic Division said that because the bicycles did not have license plates, it would be difficult to fine bikers who transgressed traffice laws “unless they were caught red-handed.”
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,