The Ministry of Transportation and Communications is amending regulations and requesting that all cities and counties install countdown timers for red lights only.
Countdown timers at red lights inform motorists about the time left before the traffic light turns green, whereas countdown timers at green lights tell motorists how much time there is left before the light turns red.
At present, counties can choose which system to use and can also opt not to install the devices. In some counties, however, timers for both red lights and green lights are installed.
Chang Shun-ching (張舜清), a section chief at the Department of Railways and Highways, said the Institute of Transportation has analyzed 187 road sections nationwide where the devices are installed.
Results showed that the timers at red lights had helped reduce the number of traffic accidents by 50 percent.
They also reduced deaths and injuries by 100 percent and 52 percent respectively.
Conversely, the number of accidents where countdown timers were used at green lights increased twofold. While the number of fatalities did not rise, the number of injuries was up by more than 30 percent.
When both types of timers are installed, the number of accidents rose 19 percent and injuries 23 percent respectively.
Chang said the policy would likely to take effect in June. The amendment does not need the approval of the legislature.
Chang said trial runs of the two systems were being held in some counties.
Once the amendment is complete, counties will have to follow the regulations, he said.
"If they choose to install timers for green lights, they will be doing so at their own risk," he said.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
Environmental groups yesterday filed an appeal with the Executive Yuan, seeking to revoke the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conditionally approved in February for the Hsieh-ho Power Plant’s planned fourth liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving station off the coast of Keelung. The appeal was filed jointly by the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group, the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association and the Keelung City Taiwan Head Cultural Association, which together held a news conference outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei. Explaining the reasons for the appeal, Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) of the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group said that the EIA failed to address
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked