Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Sandy Yu (游毓蘭) on Sunday called for new legislation to standardize road and sidewalk designs to better protect pedestrians.
The proposal came in the wake of an incident last month in which a mother and child were killed by a bus while crossing an intersection in Taichung, as well as the publication of a CNN article that called Taiwan a “living hell” for pedestrians.
Yu said there were 410 pedestrian fatalities in Taiwan last year, of which 23 involved people who were killed while using pedestrian crossings.
Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Taipei Times
The “pedestrian-unfriendly” traffic environment stems in part from regulations that enable road design authorities to build discontinuous sidewalks that are easily obstructed or no sidewalks at all, she said.
Yu said legislation should be drafted to set strict national standards for pedestrian infrastructure construction.
A nationwide survey should be conducted to identify areas that are risky for pedestrians, she said, citing inadequate surface markings and signage at accident-prone sites.
Yu said lighting should be improved and more pedestrian islands should be constructed at intersections where large numbers of incidents involving pedestrians occur.
There should be safety certifications for roads and intersections of a certain size, she added.
Taiwan Traffic Safety Association vice president Lin Chih-hsueh (林志學) said poor road design is to blame for the high number of incidents involving pedestrians, rather than Taiwan’s driving culture.
Lin said the government tends to claim that individual drivers who are involved in such incidents are to blame, while it neglects the root cause of the problem.
Lin echoed Yu’s comments that national standards for road construction are needed, citing Japan’s Road Construction Ordinance as a potential guideline for legislators.
A comprehensive effort should be made to identify and redesign dangerous intersections, he said.
There is a growing international trend toward making intersections smaller, which entices drivers to reduce their speed as they approach them, giving them more time to react to pedestrians, he said.
Road planners should also seek to increase visibility at intersections by ensuring that drivers’ view of sidewalks is not obstructed, Lin said, adding that traffic islands would also contribute to solving the issue.
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