A traffic safety park for children opened yesterday at the Youth Park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華) to teach children about traffic safety issues.
Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Chi Wen-chung (祁文中) and Taipei Department of Transportation Director Chen Hsueh-tai (陳學台) said the establishment of the park is an important step toward preventing traffic-related deaths and injuries among children.
Aimed at children aged six to 12, the park employs a series of games focused on safety issues, the ministry said.
Photo: CNA
Teachers can guide students in playing the games, which are designed to raise awareness of personal safety around roadways and motor vehicles, it said.
The park is divided into seven learning zones: road signs and crossings — for which there are two zones each, safe waiting practices, traffic blind spots, and alleys and other narrow roadways.
It aims to teach children safe ways to cross the road, such as using crosswalks, pushing buttons for signals where they exist, and wearing bright or reflective clothing or accessories, the ministry said, adding that it would review the park’s teaching materials to determine their effectiveness.
About 60 percent of traffic accidents occur at crossings, and among those involving children 12 years old or younger, about 14 percent were due to a motor vehicle striking and killing the child, the ministry said.
The ministry plans to introduce measures between next year and 2022 to improve traffic safety, it said.
These include installing more button-activated crossing signals near schools and distributing short films on traffic education to elementary schools, alongside a proposal requiring schools to show a minimum of four hours of safety videos in class per academic year, it said.
Aside from referencing practices in Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong, ministry representatives spoke with schools in Taipei, Kaohsiung, Tainan and Miaoli to develop ideas for traffic safety parks, it said.
One park opened next to Kaohsiung’s National Science and Technology Museum, which held 236 sessions during its trial run from Sept. 1 to Nov. 15, it said.
READY: The CGA said it closely monitored China’s maritime exercise, deployed vessels to shadow the Chinese ships one-on-one and set up emergency response centers Chinese navy and coast guard ships have returned to China, signaling the end of a massive maritime exercise, authorities said yesterday. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) released images it said showed Chinese vessels sailing north in rough seas past Taiwan on Thursday, on their way to China. “All the Chinese coast guard went back to China yesterday, so although they have not officially made any announcement, we consider it over,” CGA Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said. Beijing has not confirmed the drills and the Chinese Ministry of National Defense did not say whether the maneuvers had taken place when asked at a
People can take the Taipei MRT free of charge if they access it at Nanjing Sanmin Station or Taipei Arena Station on the Green Line between 12am and 6am on Jan. 1, the Taipei Department of Transportation said on Friday, outlining its plans to ease crowding during New Year’s events in the capital. More than 200,000 people are expected to attend New Year’s Eve events in Taipei, with singer A-mei (張惠妹) performing at the Taipei Dome and the city government’s New Year’s Eve party at Taipei City Hall Plaza, the department said. As people have tended to use the MRT’s Blue or
PUBLIC TRANSPORT: As some roads would be fully or partially closed, people are advised to take the MRT, with services expanded to accommodate more riders This year’s Taipei Marathon, which has obtained its first gold label certification from World Athletics, is to be held from 5am to 1pm tomorrow and would have 28,000 participants. The race is to start from the Taipei City Plaza and would go through major roads throughout the city, with traffic control implemented from 6am to 2pm, officials said. The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system and New Taipei City MRT Circle line would start operating at 5am on the day of the race, they said. The race would cover Renai Road, Xinyi Road, Hangzhou S Road, Aiguo east and west roads,
Taiwanese professional baseball should update sports stadiums and boost engagement to enhance fans’ experience, Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) commissioner Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview on Friday. The league has urged Farglory Group and the Taipei City Government to improve the Taipei Dome’s outdated equipment, including relatively rudimentary television and sound systems, and poor technology, he said. The Tokyo Dome has markedly better television and sound systems, despite being 30 years old, because its managers continually upgraded its equipment, Tsai said. In contrast, the Taipei Dome lacked even a room for referees