A Keelung resident surnamed Wu (吳) was shocked when he received a speeding ticket and a fine of NT$24,000 from the New Taipei City (新北市) police department for driving at 1,623kph — 1,563kph over the speed limit.
Wu, who received the ticket in the mail on Wednesday, was incredulous when he saw the fine, saying the government was robbing him. A Department of Motor Vehicles staffer said he had never seen anything like the speeding ticket.
Tseng Huan-chang (曾煥彰), the patrol officer in the Ruifang Precinct Traffic Duty Section of the New Taipei City Police Department who issued the ticket, apologized to Wu after he was informed of the issue.
Tseng said a camera caught Wu speeding along the Maoao section of Provincial Highway No. 2. The section of the highway has a speed limit of 60kph, Tseng said, but Wu was driving at 75kph when the speed camera took the photo.
The company that police outsource data input to made a mistake, keying in 1,563kph instead of 15kph over the speed limit, inflating the original NT$1,600 fine to NT$24,000, Tseng said.
The mistake was not spotted, Tseng said, adding that a correct ticket would be mailed to Wu.
Wu said his wife had almost divorced him because of the police department’s mistake, adding that friends who saw the ticket joked that he must have been flying an airplane on the highway.
TRANSLATED BY JAKE CHUNG, STAFF WRITER
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
RSS