Late last year, CNN Travel reported that Taiwan, a country renowned for its hospitality, sees many incidents of pedestrians being hit by vehicles that fail to give way at crosswalks, including many leading to injury or death.
CNN even called Taiwan a “living hell” for pedestrians. The term has resonated with the Taiwanese media and people, becoming a buzzword.
Faced with a “living hell” for pedestrians, the public expects the government to propose solutions to the problem.
The government can show its determination by outfitting more intersections with technology to discipline drivers who fail to give way to pedestrians, allowing the public to report unsafe driving and deploying more police officers to issue tickets for illegal parking.
Surprisingly, newly inaugurated Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) became the first local government head to address the issue when he announced that all motorcycles must immediately be removed from the city’s sidewalks.
He also said his administration would remove parking spaces for scooters that partly block the sidewalks along major roads in central Taipei, such as Dunhua N Road and Renai Road sections 1 and 2.
As a descendant of a notable family, Chiang perhaps does not need a motorcycle to get around Taipei and worry about parking. Maybe this is why he does not fully understand the importance of parking spaces for people who commute to work in central Taipei by scooter.
Authorities have for years allowed scooters to park on designated spaces at the edge of sidewalks. Most people who park on those spaces turn off the engine of their scooter before pushing it onto the sidewalk. The risk that they harm pedestrians is slim.
As Taipei is tackling the “living hell” for pedestrians, it unfortunately stigmatizes all motorcyclists. It is the wrong solution to a pressing problem, and it shows that the Chiang administration needs to work harder to draft its policies.
Fan Shuo-ming is a senior administrative specialist at National Chengchi University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not