Investigators yesterday said that video footage of a freeway bus crash on Monday contradicted testimony by the bus’ driver, Wu Hsieh-sung (吳?松), while prosecutors said they plan to summon witnesses and drivers of the vehicles involved for questioning to determine the cause of the fatal incident.
Following the incident, Wu told authorities that he was driving the Aloha Bus Co bus on the outer northbound lane when he came upon a small truck that did not have its taillights on and decelerated sharply.
Wu said that he braked and veered left to avoid a collision, but then lost control of the vehicle.
The bus slammed into the median divider near the 384km marker of Sun Yat-sen Freeway (National Freeway No. 1) in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (岡山).
The windows on the left side of the bus were shattered and the vehicle’s metal frame was deformed. Some of those aboard who had not buckled their safety belts were thrown from the bus on impact, leaving six dead and 11 injured, including Wu, who sustained minor injuries.
The Ciaotou District (橋頭) Prosecutors’ Office, which is investigating the incident, yesterday reviewed footage from surveillance cameras along the freeway.
Officials said the footage shows two vehicles in front of the bus prior to the incident, both of which had their taillights on.
They added that while a truck in front of the bus slowed down before the incident, it did not decelerate sharply as Wu claimed.
As the footage contradicted Wu’s testimony, prosecutors yesterday summoned Wu for additional questioning, due to suspicions he provided a false account of the crash in order to evade responsibility.
Prosecutors said they have also examined footage from a camera mounted on the bus, which also contradicts Wu’s statement, as it shows that the taillights of the vehicles ahead of the bus were on and, while the truck did slow down, there was no sharp deceleration.
As Wu passed a Breathalyzer test, ruling out impairment due to alcohol consumption, prosecutors said the incident was most likely caused by the bus’ excessive speed and Wu failing to maintain a safe distance from the vehicles ahead.
Data from the vehicle indicated that the bus crashed into the median divider at more than 120kph, exceeding the legal speed limit for that stretch of the freeway, they said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift