Tainan City councilors on Wednesday last week urged the city to amend the system that allows the public to report traffic offenses, citing abuse in the procedures.
The city last year received 400,000 reports of traffic offenses, with 280,000 reports resulting in fines, city councilors Chao Kun-yuan (趙昆原) and Tseng Hsin-kai (曾信凱) said, adding that many of the reports seem to have been made maliciously.
“We’ve basically got people using public officials as their lackeys. It’s destructive to social harmony,” the councilors said.
The surge in reports tied up police officers’ time and put the public on edge, Tseng said.
“These people don’t have the training and experience that police do, and when they file a report, officers need to spend time reviewing the case — it’s a waste of public resources,” he said.
Citing an example, Tseng said that police were called to one apartment complex seven times over an improperly parked scooter, but the reports apparently stemmed from a grievance between neighbors.
About 40 percent of the reports last year were filed by the same person, and 50 police officers invested time into investigating them, Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) said.
The enforcement of traffic laws should be the same nationwide, Huang added.
“We also have a problem with false 119 emergency calls — we get up to 1,000 calls per day,” he said. “Some people also abuse the ambulance service, using it in place of a taxi to visit the hospital.”
Tainan Police Department Commissioner Fang Yang-ning (方仰寧) said that at least 30 percent of the reported traffic offenses each year are not legitimate.
“The department’s responsibility is to ensure that roads in the city are safe for drivers and it will do its best to give advice on even the smallest of traffic offenses,” he said.
The department has looked into having personnel trained specifically to handle publicly reported traffic offenses, to take the burden off of police officers, who must see to other duties, Fang added.
The first two F-16V Bock 70 jets purchased from the US are expected to arrive in Taiwan around Double Ten National Day, which is on Oct. 10, a military source said yesterday. Of the 66 F-16V Block 70 jets purchased from the US, the first completed production in March, the source said, adding that since then three jets have been produced per month. Although there were reports of engine defects, the issue has been resolved, they said. After the jets arrive in Taiwan, they must first pass testing by the air force before they would officially become Taiwan’s property, they said. The air force
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
STRIKE: Some travel agencies in Taiwan said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group tours to the country were proceeding as planned A planned strike by airport personnel in South Korea has not affected group tours to the country from Taiwan, travel agencies said yesterday. They added that they were closely monitoring the situation. Personnel at 15 airports, including Seoul’s Incheon and Gimpo airports, are to go on strike. They announced at a news conference on Tuesday that the strike would begin on Friday next week and continue until the Mid-Autumn Festival next month. Some travel agencies in Taiwan, including Cola Tour, Lion Travel, SET Tour and ezTravel, said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group
RSS