The Ministry of Transportation and Communications is to authorize police to conduct roadside saliva tests by the end of the year to deter people from driving while under the influence of narcotics, it said yesterday.
The ministry last month unveiled a draft of amended regulations governing traffic safety rules and penalties, which included provisions empowering police to conduct mandatory saliva tests on drivers.
While currently rules authorize police to use oral fluid testing kits for signs of drug use, they do not establish penalties for noncompliance or operating procedures for officers to follow, the ministry said.
Photo: Huang Liang-chieh, Taipei Times
The proposed changes to the regulations require police to video the test, which should be performed at the side of the road, it said.
Officers would be able to demand that drivers present themselves at a law enforcement facility to undergo saliva tests if circumstances do not permit tests to be performed at the side of the road, it added.
Police must immediately inform the driver of their test results and obtain their signature, the ministry said.
A positive result in a saliva drug test would result in a two-year license suspension for the driver and their vehicle, and a fine of up to NT$180,000 (US$5,857), it said.
The government would confiscate the vehicle of a driver who caused a severe injury or death while driving under the influence of drugs, the ministry said.
A car or motorbike driver who refused a second saliva test within 10 years would be fined up to NT$360,000, while those who refused a third time would be fined another NT$180,000 and lose their license, it said.
The ministry would publish the name and photograph of those who lost their license by refusing to take saliva tests and rescind the license plate of their vehicle for two years, it added.
Drivers of low-speed vehicles — a legal category that includes bicycles, electric bicycles and light electric scooters — must comply with saliva tests or face a NT$4,800 fine, the ministry said.
Light electric scooters could be temporarily confiscated if a driver refuses to comply with the test, it said.
Meanwhile, the ministry on Tuesday said that drivers who commit certain traffic violations more than three times in one year would be required to attend a three-hour class to improve their driving safety awareness starting in March next year.
In a Facebook post, the ministry said the violations include running red lights, failing to observe right of way at intersections with no signals, and not slowing down as required when passing crosswalks, hospitals or schools.
Professional drivers of large commercial vehicles would be required to take the class after two offenses within a year, it said.
The mandate is part of a slew of new traffic regulations to be gradually rolled out next year with the aim of reducing the number of deaths on the road by 7 percent each year, according to a statement by the ministry on Oct. 1.
These include eliminating the true/false questions from the driver’s license test, testing yielding responses in road tests, holding classes for repeat offenders caught driving without a license under the age of 18 and imposing stricter rules for elderly drivers, who would have to renew their driving license at age 70 instead of 75.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS