Traffic incidents were responsible for killing or injuring 115 children under the age of 14 last year, the Jing Chuan Child Safety Foundation said on Monday.
Seventy percent of 86 traffic incidents that occurred over the past year were caused by drivers who failed to yield to pedestrians, foundation executive director Hsu Ya-jen (許雅荏) told a news conference in Taipei, adding that nearly 60 percent of traffic-related deaths and injuries among children involved scooters or motorcycles.
Concerns about traffic safety have long been raised in Taiwan, and while authorities regularly announce measures to address the issue, these measures are often short-lived or fail to get to the root cause of safety problems. For example, in April 2023 the National Police Agency (NPA) announced the launch of a campaign to crack down on motorists who fail to yield to pedestrians at crosswalks.
That campaign, which was in response to pedestrian deaths at crossings, saw the stationing of police officers at more dangerous intersections and increased fines for related traffic contraventions. The campaign was apparently ineffective, as pedestrian deaths rose 15.5 percent in the first quarter of last year, a report by the Central News Agency on June 1 last year showed.
The crux of the issue is that the NPA says it does not have the resources needed for officers to regularly patrol the streets and enforce traffic safety, so it mainly relies on traffic cameras to issue fines. This is particularly the case in rural areas with fewer resources. For example, the Miaoli County Police Bureau on Tuesday last week announced it had installed traffic cameras along a street in Jhunan Township (竹南), and said those caught speeding could be fined up to NT$36,000.
Traffic cameras are ineffective, because they are easily noticeable and can be detected in advance with radar detectors. Even those caught by a camera and fined would most likely alter their driving patterns only when near the camera.
Simply put, there is no substitute for traffic patrols by law enforcement officers. One reason reckless driving occurs much less frequently in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and most Western European countries is that police patrol the streets in those countries. For example, it is not uncommon for drivers in the US to get pulled over after they make an unsafe lane change, overtake another driver where prohibited or tailgate. Conversely, motorists in Taiwan realize they can engage in these behaviors almost with impunity, so it is a daily occurrence for people to change lanes without signaling, straddle two lanes, unsafely merge lanes and so on.
Since such driving behaviors are so common in Taiwan, motorists are often unaware that they are contravening traffic rules. An episode of New Zealand television series Caught! In Action that aired in 2023 featured a Taiwanese driver on vacation who made several major violations within 13 minutes of receiving his rental car. He told the officer he was not aware that what he was doing was wrong.
Fixing these behaviors requires three measures. First, police must make regular patrols and traffic stops, even if that means increasing the NPA’s budget to hire more officers. Second, driver education must start in high school, and must emphasize safe driving practices such as yielding, merging in a safe but timely manner, and frequently checking mirrors and surroundings. Finally, Taiwan should implement a graduated drivers’ licensing system like those in the US and Japan, which require continual testing.
It should also be illegal for children under a certain age to be carried on a scooter as a passenger, and illegal to modify scooters with child seats.
To make the roads safer for children, drivers must be taught safe driving practices, and those practices should be encultured through better education and strict enforcement.
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