An automated traffic enforcement system in the Hsuehshan Tunnel on Freeway No. 5 is to be formally inaugurated on Thursday, targeting vehicles that are speeding, traveling below the minimum speed limit of 70kph or changing lanes, freeway authorities said yesterday.
The system in the 12.9km tunnel connecting Taipei and Yilan County is expected to stem violations and reduce traffic accidents, National Freeway Bureau officials said.
The officials have high expectations of the system’s ability to catch motorists who drive below the minimum speed limit under normal traffic conditions.
Cracking down on speed limit violations will help improve traffic safety and efficiency in the tunnel, they said.
The tunnel has long been blamed for traffic congestion on the freeway.
The congestion becomes severe on weekends when people travel from metropolitan areas in the west to Yilan, a popular tourist destination.
Some people have blamed motorists driving slowly in the tunnel for the problem, prompting authorities to increase the minimum speed from 60kph to 70kph on March 10, with a one-month grace period so drivers could adapt to the new rule.
The enforcement of the new minimum speed limit began on April 14, with violators to be fined between NT$3,000 and NT$6,000.
Motorists driving at speeds above 90kph or changing lanes in the tunnel face similar fines, the bureau said.
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:
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