Scholars and educators yesterday urged the government to create new rules to crack down on badly trained kindergarten bus drivers and their bosses before a horrific accident happens.
The Ching-chuan Children's Security Foundation, a non-governmental organization, released the results of a survey with respect to the conditions of kindergarten school buses around the nation yesterday.
The group says the results show that school bus drivers and teacher escorts lack professionalism and buses are often badly maintained.
"There is an awakening sense among parents and teachers of the need for a uniform code for bus safety," said Hsieh Bang-chang (
"The government needs to establish new rules for school-bus management and then force kindergartens to follow them."
According to the survey, about 30 percent of kindergarten owners refused to answer the question,
"How many years have your school buses been in use?"
In addition, 60 percent of owners claimed to have no idea what the condition of their buses were.
A majority of bus drivers -- 60 percent -- have not attended a single session of emergency medical training and over 40 percent have no idea how to use a fire extinguisher or open the emergency doors on the buses they drive.
"The government has tried to regulate school buses under the Traffic Law, but we need to do more," said Wu Hsiang-ping (吳湘平), a researcher with the Automotive Research and Testing Center. "We should push the government to set up a licensing system to control the quality of bus drivers and teacher escorts."
Responding to the results, Lu Bon-fu (
"We will publish guidelines to help school teachers and bus drivers understand school bus safety better," Lu said. "We will also establish a national database of all school buses and drivers for better management."
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
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
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