The Control Yuan yesterday said insufficient driver training, weak law enforcement and lenient penalties are among the factors contributing to a rise in traffic-related incidents involving foreign residents in Taiwan.
In May, a six-language survey was conducted to investigate the causes of the increase in such incidents, Control Yuan member Yeh Ta-hua (葉大華) said.
The survey identified multiple contributing factors, including inadequate driver training, weak enforcement, light penalties, poor road design and infrastructure, low traffic safety awareness, and difficulties adapting to local traffic rules due to language barriers and limited information, Yeh said.
Photo: CNA
Citing National Audit Office figures, she said more than 13,000 foreign residents were involved in traffic incidents last year, up from 6,213 in 2019.
The highest numbers were reported in Taichung, Taoyuan, New Taipei City and Tainan, the National Audit Office report said.
Foreign residents riding heavy scooters and small electric two-wheelers accounted for the largest share of those involved in incidents, the report said.
Only 10 percent of foreign residents attended a driving school to learn to drive and obtain a license, while 90 percent were unaware that a government subsidy is available for driving courses, Yeh said.
Although Taiwan has signed the UN Convention on Road Signs and Signals, traffic signs in the country do not fully comply with its standards, she added.
In addition to language barriers, some symbols and colors differ from international norms, creating further difficulties for foreign residents, Yeh said.
While small electric two-wheel vehicles remain popular among foreign residents in Taiwan, no riding permit is required for such vehicles, making enforcement difficult for police, particularly when it comes to educating riders about traffic rules amid language barriers.
The 35-page report released yesterday also included feedback from foreign residents, who urged the government to improve road safety by making driving tests more rigorous, enforcing traffic laws and penalties more strictly, and strengthening traffic safety education.
The Control Yuan said that traffic safety issues affecting foreign residents cannot be addressed by a single agency.
It called on the Executive Yuan to coordinate central and local government agencies to review policies, enforcement, education and infrastructure, and to introduce measures to protect vulnerable road users, reduce accident risks and safeguard their basic rights.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS