A police officer allegedly driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol on Saturday sideswiped seven vehicles and injured six people in Kaohsiung.
Investigators said Chang Po-chun (張博鈞), 40, attended a gathering with friends, where he drank three bottles of beer.
After a brief nap in his car in a parking lot, Chang decided to drive home, they said.
At about 11pm, when he was making a right turn on a main road in Zuoying District (左營), he hit another car, five motorcycles and a bicycle, slightly injuring six people.
A Breathalyzer test on Chang showed he had a blood alcohol level of 0.89 milligrams per liter (mg/L), well over the legal limit of 0.25mg/L.
He was released on NT$150,000 bail the next day.
Chang later apologized and promised to compensate the injured.
In related news, the Tainan branch of the Taiwan High Court on Monday sentenced a repeat DUI offender to eight months in prison.
The man, surnamed Lin (林), had been caught driving under the influence of alcohol eight times, with his latest offense in January, investigators said.
The high court struck down an earlier ruling that sentenced Lin to six months in prison, which could have been commuted to a fine.
In another drunk driving incident, Taichung police on April 11 stopped a driver, surnamed Hsu (許), during a routine check and found his blood alcohol level to be at 0.19mg/L.
They let him go with a minor traffic ticket, as he was below the legal limit, police said.
However, a background check on April 14 showed it was Hsu’s second time drunk driving within five years, they said.
He was fined NT$90,000 and had his truck confiscated and his driver’s license suspended in accordance with the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例), police said.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard