Autonomous vehicles are in the spotlight, although officials expect few roadblocks when investigating crashes involving such vehicles, the Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday as it launched a safety study.
At a session of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, Democratic Progressive Party legislators Lee Kun-tse (李昆澤) and Chen Ou-po (陳歐珀) asked board chairman Young Hong-tsu (楊宏智) whether Taiwan has a mechanism to regulate autonomous vehicles and prevent crashes involving them.
Lee asked whether the board has the technology and resources to investigate such crashes, as autonomous vehicles are very different from standard gas or electric vehicles.
The government lacks comprehensive regulations for driverless vehicles, Chen said, adding that the board is also keen to help establish a disaster-prevention mechanism to address battery fires in electric vehicles, including buses.
The development of autonomous and electric vehicles has triggered discussions worldwide about the hazards — potential and realized — they pose, he said, adding that the board in June discussed the issues with overseas experts in a videoconference.
“We have simulated how investigations should proceed into crashes involving autonomous vehicles, so we should have no problem completing such a task,” Young said.
“We also hope to be involved when the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications conduct tests of autonomous vehicles,” he said.
The board would focus on studying autonomous vehicle safety in the next few years, as well as standard assembly methods for tour buses and the management of construction sites along railway lines, Young said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
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