The recent highway accident involving Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (
Highways are normally seen as a symbol of modernization. The construction and development of Taiwan's highway system has continued unabated since the first highway opened in 1978.
The nation's academic institutions have supported this development, with university civil engineering departments ignoring mass-transportation infrastructure such as railroads in favor of improving automobile travel.
Not everyone agrees with this trend. Premier Su Tseng-chang's (蘇貞昌) support for the construction of the Suao-Hualien Freeway has touched off sharp disagreements between Hualien residents. Some residents have suffered the trials of previous modernization movements and worry that the new highway could bring disaster to the county. Others herald the new project as a part of the march toward modernity.
But freeways in themselves will not solve the nation's automobile transportation problems.
Anyone who has spent much time behind the wheel knows that venturing onto the freeway is like stepping onto the battlefield of some barbaric game. Figures from the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau show that 575 items of various sizes were dropped in October on the stretch of highway that Hu had his accident on.
What this means is that even if drivers obey traffic laws, they are still surrounded by potentially life-threatening dangers.
Drivers can be injured or even killed by objects thrown from vehicles, chain-reaction collisions, blowouts caused by litter and by losing control when they try to avoid hitting trash that suddenly appears in the road. Unfortuantely, these are all common occurrences on Taiwan's highways.
This barbaric game also includes reckless speeding and lane changing. The speeding problem can be remedied by punishing violators, but lane changing is a more difficult issue.
The freeway bureau has used various methods, such as radio broadcasts and highway signs, to warn drivers not to drive in the inner lane. But drivers seem not to understand these announcements or intentionally choose to disregard them.
By law, the left-hand lane (as the driver sits behind the wheel) of a freeway is supposed to be used for overtaking. But all over the country, the majority of cars stay in this lane, turning the right hand lanes into passing lanes.
Most drivers resort to overtaking in this manner because they are rushing to get to work on time.
It's dangerous for overtaking cars to violate the rules of the road and pass inappropriately, whether from the left or right side.
Hu's car, for example, flipped over after being struck by another driver who was trying to pass on the shoulder. Unfortunately, this kind of driving is not surprising or uncommon in Taiwan.
A civil society develops in the public space between national systems, organizations and individual citizens.
Those who want to use this space must agree to abide by commonly accepted customs and laws for a civil society to function, and individuals cannot simply do as they please. For example, laws prevent people throwing trash out of a car window because it endangers the larger community. Many drivers, however, choose to disregard the greater good and persist in tossing garbage onto the road.
Construction has begun to widen the southern stretch of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway from two lanes in each direction to three. When the road had just two lanes, drivers merely had to concentrate on the cars in the lane next to them.
But now, as they drive along at speeds between 60kph and 110kph on a three lane freeway, drivers seem not to understand that the rightmost lane is for slower driving, the middle lane for faster driving and the leftmost lane for passing. These drivers create a situation in which others must look out for cars on both sides at the same time.
The danger increases as people weave in and out of their lanes in flagrant disregard of the law. This is why entering the highway is like stepping onto a minefield, and is one of the reasons why Taiwan has so many traffic accidents in comparison with other industrialized countries.
We cannot simply pass off the high accident rate as bad luck. To make the nation's freeways safer will require nothing less than revamping the value structure of our civil society.
Drivers need to realize that the value of a human life far surpasses their desire to get to work a few seconds earlier.
At this critical juncture, the government must establish an effective method for disseminating information and an efficient system of enforcing traffic laws.
In fact, the nation has already had some success in this area. For example, Taipei's clean MRT system is not like the filthy subways to be found in many other countries around the world. Strict regulations that are strictly enforced ensure that the MRT system remains a space where society can function in an orderly fashion.
The management of the Hsuehshan Tunnel on the Chiang Wei-shui Freeway has been similarly successful.
The struggle to figure out how to protect ourselves on our highway battlefields leads to the realization that the nation has yet to develop a true civil society.
We have yet to develop a safe public freeway system simply because individual drivers refuse to use this public space in the proscribed manner.
This means that in addition to considering a highway's legal, budgetary and environmental aspects, we must also demand a civil society that assures the safety of each driver using it.
As completion of the lane widening project on the Sun Yat-sen Freeway nears, everyone should recognize that safety is more important than convenience.
Wang Wen-cheng is an assistant professor in the Institute of Public Affairs Management at National Sun Yat-sen University.
Translated by Marc Langer
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