A traffic accident in Taichung — a city bus on Sept. 22 hit two Tunghai University students on a pedestrian crossing, killing one and injuring the other — has once again brought up the issue of Taiwan being a “living hell for pedestrians” and large vehicle safety to public attention.
A deadly traffic accident in Taichung on Dec. 27, 2022, when a city bus hit a foreign national, his Taiwanese wife and their one-year-old son in a stroller on a pedestrian crossing, killing the wife and son, had shocked the public, leading to discussions and traffic law amendments.
However, just after the fatal incident on Sept. 22, two more accidents involving buses occurred in Taichung. A school bus carrying more than a dozen students on Friday hit an elderly woman on an electric scooter, killing the woman at the scene, while a bus on the same day crashed into three cars and resulted in an elderly man being rushed to a hospital.
There were 142 deaths from traffic accidents in Taichung in the first half of this year, which is the second-highest in the nation, Ministry of Transportation and Communications statistics show. Overall, 183 pedestrians died in the first half of this year, up 5.8 percent from the same period last year. That includes 28 in Taichung, seven more than last year, which is the highest in the nation.
Large passenger vehicles and large trucks had the highest accident rates in the past decade, and the leading causes were “improper driving behavior,” followed by “failure to keep a safe distance” and “fatigue, nervousness and distractions,” data from the Taichung Police Department’s Traffic Police Corps show.
The Taichung government stepped up its preventive measures last week by imposing a heavy fine on the bus operator of the vehicle involved in the Sept. 22 incident, Geya Bus Transportation Co, and requiring bus operators to provide safety training to drivers. It also plans to enhance safety controls at the 20 most accident-prone intersections and require all city buses to install advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) by the end of the year.
It launched a three-day traffic law enforcement campaign to clamp down on motorists who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections and suspended Geya Bus’ right to operate a prime bus route in the city for three months.
However, many people and pedestrian advocacy groups doubt the effectiveness of the measures, saying that ADAS were already installed in 80 percent of the city buses, including the one involved in the Sept. 22 incident, but unruly drivers continue to ignore the system’s warnings. The driver was also found to have hit and killed another pedestrian 13 years ago while driving a bus, but he was only sentenced to eight months in prison and given probation.
The central government had allocated a budget for Taichung to improve road safety at 63 accident-prone intersections in the city this year, but only 12 intersections have been improved as of last week, sources said. Some also questioned whether short-term “stricter traffic law enforcement campaigns” are helpful, as they should be long-lasting to change motorists’ driving habits for good.
Many pedestrian advocacy groups and urban planning experts have suggested redesigning streets to give priority and more space to pedestrians, but so far the design strategies have only been implemented in a few areas by local governments, lacking nationwide uniformity and sometimes causing confusion.
Vision Zero — a movement to end traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries by taking a systemic approach to road safety — has been called for in Taiwan in recent years. The government should know that a human-centered safe traffic system cannot be accomplished by short-term law enforcement campaigns or imposing heavier penalties, it needs to combine the three Es — engineering, education and enforcement — for effects to be sustainable.
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