A Kaohsiung man has received 22 fines totaling NT$26,400 (US$925.21) for throwing cigarette butts from his car window over a two-hour period, after another driver caught him on their dashcam.
The man was parked near a convenience store on Bade Road in the city’s Fongshan District (鳳山) on Sept. 28, when he was recorded throwing 22 cigarette butts from his window starting at 11pm, said the Kaohsiung Environmental Protection Bureau, which received the report and issued the fines.
The bureau issued a NT$1,200 fine for each of the infractions in accordance with the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物清理法), which stipulates a fine of between NT$1,200 and NT$6,000 for littering, it said on Sunday.
As the law also allows for a reward of 15 percent of issued fines for those who report offenses, the person who submitted the report would receive NT$3,960, it said.
After receiving the fines the man posted on Facebook asking whether others felt the fine was reasonable.
One user said that he had received too many tickets, while another wrote that it was “ridiculous” for someone to smoke 22 cigarettes over two hours.
Responding to criticisms that it had issued too many tickets, the bureau said it had done the same in the past, and that although it was within its right to fine the man NT$6,000 for each infraction, it instead issued the minimum fine on each count.
The man can appeal the tickets if he wants, the bureau added.
Lawyer Ko Kuang-hui (葛光輝), who is representing the man, said that if a government agency wants to issue separate tickets for each infraction within the same time period, the law must clearly stipulate that this is allowed.
Ko said he had advised his client to appeal the tickets, as the normal practice is to collectively treat all infractions of the same type within the same time period and at the same place as a single occurrence.
The problem with issuing separate tickets for multiple infractions occurring successively is that it does not give the accused an opportunity to correct their behavior, he said.
The bureau issued 23,418 tickets, totaling NT$33.72 million, in the first 10 months of the year, of which 12,248 tickets were for cigarette litter, and 3,178 were for improperly discarded garbage and pollution offenses, it said.
Kaohsiung was the first city in the nation to allow people to register to report littering offenses, it said, adding that it started with 1,000 members and has grown to more than 6,000 people, who have collectively been awarded NT$6 million so far this year for reporting offenses.
One person alone has received NT$420,000 this year, it said.
Kaohsiung provides awards for reporting littering and pollution offenses, but not for reporting traffic infractions, it said.
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