People using mobility scooters or powered wheelchairs could face speeding fines of NT$300 if caught going in excess of 6kph on sidewalks after legislators yesterday gave preliminary approval to amend the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例).
Members of the Legislative Yuan’s Transportation Committee said that as powered wheelchairs and mobility scooters, which are regulated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, share space with pedestrians, they need to limit their operating speed.
The amendment would also regulate other devices, including skate-scooters, electric bicycles and electric scooters. These devices should be designed to carry only one person and have a maximum speed of 25kph. Local governments are authorized to stipulate road sections, times and speed limits for these devices, the amendment says.
Mobility scooters and powered wheelchairs, which are regulated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, should be designed to carry only one person and have a maximum speed of 25kph.
Local governments are authorized to stipulate road sections, times and speed limits for mobility devices, the amendment says.
People who breach the regulations would face a fine of NT$1,200 to NT$3,600, and would be asked to stop operating them, the amendment says.
People aged under 14 are not allowed to operate personal mobility devices, it says.
Those who contravene the age restriction face a fine of NT$600 to NT$1,200 and confiscation of the device, it says.
Rental service operators should teach people how and where they are allowed to operate such devices, with companies that fail to do so facing fines of NT$600 to NT$1,200, the amendment says.
Meanwhile, people who have mufflers removed from vehicles that creates results in excessive noise face a suspension of their license plate for six months, another proposal says.
Should the offense recur within one year, their driver’s license would be suspended for six months, it says.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater