The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous.
“We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office.
“In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations more thoroughly,” he said.
Photo courtesy of the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office
The Highway Bureau would also exclude questions that could be answered easily, he added.
The bureau gave as an example a question asking if it is correct that drivers should reduce speed and be prepared to stop when their vision is hindered by heavy rain.
The new policy governing the issuance of a driver’s license is part of the reforms that the ministry had proposed after a 78-year-old driver hit pedestrians and scooter riders near a school in New Taipei City, killing three people and injuring 12.
Photo: CNA
Aside from lowering the age for elderly drivers to renew their license to 70 from 75, the ministry said it would change the driver’s license test and would ask those who frequently contravene traffic regulations to receive additional training.
The written test for car drivers contains 40 questions, while that for motorcyclists has 50 questions, Highway Bureau Director-General Chen Wen-juei (陳文瑞) said.
In both tests, half of the questions instruct test takers to identify whether a statement is true or false, while the other half are multiple-choice questions, he said.
“People have a 50 percent chance to guess the correct answer in true-or-false questions, which makes it difficult to determine if they truly understand traffic regulations. We are considering eliminating all true-or-false questions and administering tests with multiple-choice questions only,” Chen Wen-juei said, adding that test takers would be required to choose an answer from four choices instead of three.
The question bank for the car license exam has 1,400 questions, while that for the motorcycle license exam has 1,600 questions, the bureau said, adding that it would remove easy questions, which more than 90 percent of test takers answer correctly, from the question banks.
“We are not making the written test so difficult that nobody can get their license. We hope the test can differentiate between varying levels of driving competence,” Chen Wen-juei said.
The new license test is scheduled to be implemented next year.
About 549,000 people take license tests for cars and motorcycles every year.
The pass rate for the written test for a car license is about 85 percent, while that of motorcycle license is about 70 percent, bureau data showed.
About 70 percent of people taking the car license exam pass both the written and driving tests, while 50 to 60 percent of those taking the motorcycle exam pass both tests, the data showed.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS