As of next month, people wanting to take the motorcycle license test might be required to make reservations in advance with some of the nation’s motor vehicle offices, the Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) said yesterday.
According to the highway authority, the policy would apply to the motor vehicle offices in Taipei’s, Shilin District (士林); New Taipei City’s Banciao (板橋) and Luzhou District (蘆州); Taoyuan’s Jhongli District (中壢); as well as offices in Hsinchu, Taichung, Changhua County and Tainan. These offices generally have more people wanting to sit the license exam than other offices.
The directorate said yesterday that the new policy is to be implemented to ensure the quality of the license test. It added that the policy is particularly needed in summer, when more students take advantage of their vacation time to take the test.
The directorate said that people wanting to take the test should reserve a time if they want to do the test on a Monday, a Friday or at the weekend. Bookings are not required between Tuesday and Thursday, the directorate said, with the exception of the Shilin office, which requires reservations at all times and has only 30 places available for walk-ins.
Many people took the license test at the end of June because the directorate is to use a new test questions beginning this month.
The directorate also said that the number of people sitting the license test can reach 1,000 per day in some of the offices during summer and exams might not finish until about 8pm.
The situation presents a challenge to the motor vehicle offices in maintaining the quality of the motorcycle license tests. It has also overloaded exam administrators and as a consequence the overall pass rate of license examinees has dropped from 80 percent to 40 percent, the directorate said.
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
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