Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) yesterday announced five measures after a bus struck two university students on a city crosswalk on Sunday, killing one and injuring the other.
Speaking at a city council meeting, Lu said that she was “deeply saddened” by the incident, which she attributed to the bus driver’s “negligence.”
The Taichung City Government would impose a “heavy penalty” of NT$1.2 million (US$37,540) on the bus company involved in the incident and request that all bus operators in the city implement “safety education training” within 10 days, she said, without giving further details.
Photo: Huang Liang-chieh, Taipei Times
The city government would review the intersection where the fatal incident occurred as well as 20 other traffic accident hot spots, she added.
Lu vowed to increase penalties levied on bus companies involved in serious accidents and install “driver safety assistance systems” on all city buses by the end of the year.
“When we get out of our cars, we are all pedestrians,” she said. “When we get in a car, we should treat pedestrians as we would our own family.”
Photo courtesy of an anonymous reader
The two Tunghai University students were walking across a pedestrian crossing in Taichung’s Central District (中區) at about 9:15pm on Sunday when they were hit by a No. 305 city bus.
The vehicle, operated by Geya Bus Transportation Co (巨業交通), made a left turn from Luchuan E Street onto Zhongshan Road, killing a female student surnamed Lin (林) and injuring another surnamed Wang (王).
The driver of the bus, identified by his surname, Shih (施), was released on NT$10,000 bail after prosecutors on Monday questioned him on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter.
Shih, who had driven the route for 15 years and was not under the influence of alcohol at the time of the collision, told police that he had not seen the young women crossing the road because it was “late” and “dark,” and because she was wearing dark clothing.
The students were crossing the road at a pedestrian crossing in accordance with traffic regulations during a green light that indicated that they had the right of way.
Drivers are allowed to drive through pedestrian crossings at intersections when making turns, even when a green crosswalk light indicates that pedestrians can cross the road.
Lu’s Facebook account had been inundated with angry comments following news of the collision.
Earlier this month, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications released data showing that pedestrian fatalities were up 5.8 percent in the first half of the year compared with the same period last year.
In the first three months of this year, 119 pedestrians were killed in road accidents.
The main causes of the deaths were drivers failing to give way to pedestrians crossing roads, at crosswalks or outside marked crossings, the ministry said.
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