Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) on Saturday said he would sponsor an amendment banning the use of mobile devices mounted in a holder while driving.
The Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例) prohibits driving while using a device that is held in the driver’s hand, but the phrasing does not restrict use of a device that has been placed in a holder, he said.
Any action that distracts a driver for even two seconds could create a dangerous traffic situation, Chao said, citing the Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ Road Safety Committee.
Police data show that road collisions involving electronic device use have increased from 366 in 2016 to 454 in 2019, he said.
The amendments would change the act’s phrasing to include a blanket ban on mobile device use while driving, Chao said, adding that fines stipulated in the act would remain unchanged.
Using a phone while driving is punishable by a fine of NT$3,000 for car drivers and NT$1,000 for motorcycle and scooter drivers.
A delivery driver surnamed Lu (呂) said that most delivery drivers use a phone device only while stopped at a red light and when they know they have enough time before the light turns green.
“Drivers who watch TV on the road are the real menace to safety, and I do not think the suggested changes to the law will fix the problem” of unsafe driving habits, Lu said.
Another delivery driver surnamed Hu (胡) said that taking orders and using navigation apps are things drivers can do before they are on the road, and that drivers can always pull over to check their cellphones.
“The amendment will not have much effect on our jobs. Delivery people are pedestrians, too, and we should welcome policies that make the roads safer,” Hu said.
In other legislative news, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Charles Chen (陳以信) on Friday said he would introduce a bill that would bar officials who show contempt for the legislature from entering the Legislative Yuan.
The proposed amendments would authorize the legislature to refuse entry to officials who showed contempt for the remainder of a legislative session, or until lawmakers see fit to rescind the status, he said.
Under the Act Governing the Exercise of Legislative Power (立法院職權行使法), members of the Executive Yuan must have the premier’s written permission to be excused from legislative interpellations, for which a stated reason is required, Chen said.
His proposed amendments would require the premier to request permission from the legislative speaker to be absent from interpellations, while other Executive Yuan officials must be excused by the convener of a session’s committee, he said.
If passed, the bill would ensure that government officials treat the Legislative Yuan with dignity and hold it in higher respect, Chen said.
The premier and other members of the Executive Yuan have a constitutional duty to attend interpellations so that they can be held accountable, Chen said.
Chen added that in practice, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and officials had on multiple occasions skipped legislative sessions without explaining their absence, refused to answer questions forthrightly or had given untruthful responses.
Such actions significantly hinder lawmakers from effectively monitoring the executive branch, and yet no penalty is stipulated under the law for contempt of the legislature, he said.
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
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
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