Speeding remains the primary reason drivers face having their licenses suspended, the Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) said yesterday, amid a debate over new demerit rules for illegal stopping.
The demerit point system was amended on June 30 to change the number of points required before a person’s license is suspended from six points over six months to 12 points over a year. It also adjusted the definition of what constitutes a demerit point.
Since the amendment, there have been about 10 times more traffic infringements involving demerits than were recorded last year, data from the agency showed.
Photo: Taipei Times
After the amendment, more than 70 percent of traffic infringements were reported by pedestrians or other drivers, whereas beforehand, police officers had to pull over an offending driver for them to receive a demerit point, Monitoring and Surveillance Division head Wei Wu-sheng (魏武盛) said.
The amendment allows traffic infringements called in by the public to count toward demerit points, Wei added.
From June 30 to Thursday last week, there were 1.01 million incidents of speeding, 905,560 incidents of illegal stopping, 676,433 incidents of people changing lanes or turning without signaling, 458,619 incidents of people running red lights and 456,984 incidents of people driving into oncoming lanes, agency data showed.
The data showed that 800,230 people received demerit points for contravening traffic regulations, 944 of whom had reached the maximum of 12 points per year and had their driver’s licenses suspended.
In contrast, demerit points were given out for 74,390 traffic infringements last year, with 32,531 people racking up more than six points and having their licenses suspended, the agency said.
The amendments enable people to pay to attend traffic safety courses to deduct demerit points, Wei said.
Drivers who have accrued six points in one year may pay NT$600 to attend a three-hour course to deduct two demerit points from their record, he said.
From June 30 to Nov. 30, there were 1,156 drivers who paid to attend such courses, he added.
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