The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) yesterday said it is planning to ban the use of selfie sticks at all of its stations, and expects to release detailed regulations before the end of the year.
The TRA’s plan comes after West Japan Railway on Sept. 19 banned the use of selfie sticks on all of its train platforms and service areas, as well as its bullet train service.
According to the Japanese train operator, the sticks upset other commuters.
The prohibition is also intended to prevent passengers from accidentally coming into contact with trains and power lines.
Based on the agency’s proposal, passengers would be banned from using selfie sticks in several areas, including the railway tracks as well as the area on the side of railway tracks, platforms and areas inside train stations where passengers are barred from entry.
Passengers using selfie sticks in these prohibited areas could face a fine of between NT$1,500 and NT$7,500.
In cases where the agency deemed that the use of selfie sticks endangered the safety of train operations, the person could be fined between NT$10,000 and NT$50,000.
Apart from the danger from high-voltage overhead wires, the agency said that selfie sticks could potentially injure other passengers, while those taking a selfie could accidentally fall into the railway tracks.
While there has yet to be incidents of passengers being electrocuted due to their selfie sticks coming in contact with overhead wires, there were two incidents last year in which people were injured when their fishing rods hit overhead wires while they walking across railway tracks.
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
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
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