Roadside alcohol testing is to be expanded after collisions yesterday in New Taipei City and Miaoli County saw one person killed and five injured, the latest in a spate of serious accidents this week, police said.
A two-vehicle collision occurred in the early morning at the 50.5km mark on the southbound lane of the Formosa Freeway (National Freeway No. 3), near the exit for New Taipei City’s Yingge (鶯歌) and Sansia (三峽) districts, police said.
A car driven by a woman surnamed Lo (羅), 46, allegedly rammed into the back of a minivan driven by a man surnamed Chen (陳), 55, which was carrying four passengers: his elderly parents and other family members.
The minivan rolled over, injuring the occupants, who were rushed to a local hospital by city and National Highway Police Bureau ambulances.
Paramedics were able to resuscitate Chen’s father, who had exhibited no vital signs after the accident.
Highway police found that neither driver had been drinking alcohol. The two sustained minor injuries.
Lo was likely dozing off, as video footage showed that her car was weaving just before the collision, police said.
Meanwhile in Miaoli County, a 20-year-old university student was killed at about noon, when his motorcycle struck a parked semitrailer on the West Coast Expressway (Highway No. 61).
Police at the scene said that the truck driver surnamed Pan (潘), 44, was at fault, as he parked on the outer lane reserved for motorcycles.
Testing showed that Pan had not been drinking.
Police quoted Pan as saying that he had stopped on the roadside to eat lunch.
The driver was fined NT$1,200 for parking illegally, police said, adding that they plan to press charges on negligence causing death.
In the aftermath of a major accident in Taichung’s Dali District (大里) late on Wednesday, many people are demanding more severe punishments for drunk driving.
A video shows a van running a red light through an intersection, smashing into a taxi, which flipped over.
The accident killed three people, including the taxi driver surnamed Liu (劉), 65, and two passengers, surnamed Lee (李) and Chen (陳), aged 53 and 54 respectively.
Police testing showed that the van driver named Lai Chien-chih (賴建智), 41, had a blood-alcohol level of 1.39 milligrams per liter (mg/L). The legal limit is 0.15mg/L.
Taiwan Against Drunk Driving secretary-general Lin Mei-na (林美娜) said that the law is too lenient, as the most severe sentence for drunk driving resulting in death is 10 years in prison.
“In the past five years, no drunk driver has received the maximum sentence. The judges always believe the drivers did not deliberately cause death and should be given another chance, but who can give the victims a second chance at life?” she said.
At least half a bottle of liquor must be drunk to reach a blood-alcohol level of 1mg/L, so Lai must have drunk nearly one full bottle, police said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS