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.
NETWORK-MAPPING PROJECT: The database contains 170 detailed files of Taiwanese politicians and about 23 million records of household registration data in Taiwan China has developed a network-mapping project targeting political figures and parties in Taiwan to monitor public opinion during elections and to craft tailored influence campaigns aimed at dividing Taiwanese society, according to documents leaked by Chinese technology firm GoLaxy (中科天璣). The documents, collected by Taipei-based Doublethink Lab, showed a database was specifically created to gather detailed information on Taiwanese political figures, including their political affiliations, job histories, birthplaces, residences, education, religion and a brief biography about them. Several notable Taiwanese politicians are in the database, including President William Lai (賴清德), former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍),
RECOGNITION: Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry said that Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region Taiwan can lead the unification of the Chinese people, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Polish president Lech Walesa said in Taipei yesterday, adding that as the world order is changing, peaceful discussion would find good solutions, and that the use of force and coercion would always fail. Walesa made the remarks during his keynote address at a luncheon of the Yushan Forum in Taipei, titled “Indo-Pacific Partnership Prospects: Taiwan’s Values, Technology and Resilience,” organized by the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Walesa said that he had been at the forefront of a big peaceful revolution and “if
North Korea tested nuclear-capable rocket launchers, state media reported yesterday, a day after Seoul detected the launch of about 10 ballistic missiles. The test comes after South Korean and US forces launched their springtime military drills, due to run until Thursday. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Saturday oversaw the testing of the multiple rocket launcher system (MRLS), the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The test involved 12 600mm-caliber ultra-precision multiple rocket launchers and two artillery companies, it said. Kim said the drill gave Pyongyang’s enemies, within the 420km striking range, a sense of “uneasiness” and “a deep understanding
North Korea yesterday fired about 10 ballistic missiles to the sea toward Japan, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, days after Pyongyang warned of “terrible consequences” over ongoing South Korea-US military drills. Pyongyang recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul, Washington’s security ally, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce.” Seoul’s military detected “around 10 ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea [Sea of Japan] at around 1:20pm,” JCS said in a statement, referring to South Korea’s name for the body of water. The missiles
RSS