Traffic police and medics have attended a number of fatal accidents on national highways and expressways in recent days, including an incident involving a Vietnamese migrant worker in a truck that hit a commuter train in southern Taiwan.
Motorcyclist Lin Wei-hsu (林偉旭), 34, was killed yesterday morning near the Tucheng (土城) exit on the southbound Formosa Freeway (National Freeway No. 3). Lin, whose family runs a successful pastry shop in New Taipei City, was a bakery chef.
Lin rode his Ducati Monster 1100 motorcycle onto the freeway, even though motorcycles are banned on the nation’s major freeways.
Police yesterday said that they were questioning a truck driver, who was reported to have collided with Lin’s motorcycle.
Also yesterday, a woman surnamed Huang (黃), 67, was killed when her motorcycle was hit by a semi-trailer at an intersection in Kaohsiung’s Dashu District (大樹).
In Kaohsiung on Wednesday morning, a pick-up truck was driven onto a railway track and was hit by a commuter train.
The train suffered minor damages, but did not derail. Railway services were disrupted for more than an hour, with over 2,300 passengers affected by the delay.
Police found a Vietnamese laborer surnamed Luong, 26, inside the truck, which was parked near the site of an underground rail project.
When questioned by police, Luong said that he had caused the accident.
“It was very hot. I got into the truck to cool off because it has air-conditioning,” he said.
Luong said that, when he moved the gear stick, the truck somehow started and plowed ahead onto the rail track.
Local media reported the accident as: “A foreign worker wants to cool off, delays 2,300 passengers.”
The authorities also urged drivers and motorcyclists to observe traffic regulations, and warned against overtaking cars when driving around corners, after two accidents involving multiple vehicles on the Suhua Highway (蘇花公路) along Taiwan’s east coast.
In a fatal collision on Tuesday, a 19-year-old driver surnamed Huang (黃) overtook a car on a corner along the winding coastal Provincial Highway No. 9, linking Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County to Hualien County.
Huang, driving a white sedan, illegally crossed the double-yellow median lines and collided with an oncoming gravel truck. It led to collisions with other vehicles, resulting in two deaths and three serious injuries.
In an accident on June 28, a driver tried to overtake a bus on a blind corner on the same stretch of Suhao Highway in Hualien’s Siulin Township (秀林). Fortunately, the error of judgment only resulted in minor damages and no serious injuries.
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