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.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS