Pingtung County’s creative spin on pedestrian crossing lights has taken off as the county government yesterday launched an update to its animated traffic signs, known as the “little green man,” to celebrate Mother’s Day on Sunday.
The county in December last year started accepting bids for a new design for the iconic green man.
The initial version that was accepted by the county showed the little green man walking across the screen with his girlfriend on his arm when the light is green, and he proposes to her during red lights, the Pingtung County Police Station said.
Photo: CNA
The updated version shows the “couple” expecting a child during red lights, and a family of three walks across the screen when the light turns green, it said.
The new version would appear on 37 walking signals, bringing the total number of traffic lights with creative animations to 76, including 39 devices that display the proposal version, the county said.
The update was made to increase traffic safety awareness, and to add warmth to the city, Pingtung County Commissioner Pan Men-an (潘孟安) said.
The creative lights have drawn the attention of local and foreign tourists, and they promote the city, Pan said, adding that the county would continue to update the animations.
The county has also made a short film showing the process of creating the animated traffic lights and plans to submit it to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which is to be held from June 18 to June 22, with the aim of attracting more international attention to Taiwan.
The county is also holding a raffle event offering 40 pairs of T-shirts to 20 groups of winners, the county government said.
People who want to enter the raffle can do so by posting a family photograph on the county government’s Facebook page, it added.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas