The Ministry of Transportation and Communications promised yesterday to consider a KMT lawmaker's call to raise the speed limit from 100kph to 120kph on the nation's main north-south freeway.
"Our research team will look into this proposal. We will complete our research within six months and decide whether the speed limit can be raised," said Lin Dah-yuh (林大煜), director-general of the ministry's Institute of Transportation.
KMT Legislator Chi Kuo-tung (
"In some countries, there are no speed limits on freeways at all. Vehicles are far more advanced than before. Road safety facilities have also greatly improved. People can drive faster nowadays," he said.
"The Sun Yat-sen Freeway was constructed more than 20 years ago and the speed limit has only been raised once, from 90kph to 100kph," Chi said. "A lot of drivers complain about the low speed limit on the national freeway."
While PFP Legislator Chung Chao-ho (
"The reason we keep the speed limit at 100kph is because accidents tend to occur at exits and on winding sections of the road," Lin said.
"I cannot say whether the speed limit will be raised again. Last year, when the speed limit was increased from 90kph to 100kph, many scholars had suggested that 100kph was already the upper limit," Lin said.
The Sun Yat-sen Freeway was completed in 1978. Its speed limit of 90kph was raised to 100kph in December last year.
An official with the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau said that the freeway was designed to accommodate a speed limit of 120kph.
The fine for violating the speed limit on the freeway is NT$3,000.
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
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Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry