Failures and negligence by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the Executive Yuan, which oversees the ministry, have led to deteriorating safety on the nation’s roads, leading to escalating figures of fatalities and injuries in recent years, a Control Yuan report said.
The Executive Yuan has failed to adequately oversee the ministry, the report said, adding that it has contributed to Taiwan garnering an international image as a “pedestrian hell,” with about 3,000 people killed and 540,000 injured in traffic incidents on average each year.
“Despite implementing various new safety measures, this did not improve the situation. Therefore, the ministry and the Executive Yuan were negligent in not protecting the road safety of citizens. Therefore, the ministry must be censured,” the conclusion of the investigation report by Control Yuan members Wang Yu-ling, (王幼玲) Lai Cheng-chang (賴振昌) and Chao Yung-ching (趙永清) said.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
The Executive Yuan has implemented the Improvement Program for Traffic Order and Safety (道路交通秩序與交通安全改進方案), setting a target of reducing road traffic fatalities by 5 percent each year from 2016 to 2026.
The report said the Executive Yuan did not adequately supervise and monitor the ministry program. Rather than road fatalities declining in this period, Taiwan saw higher rates of fatalities and injuries, the report said.
The report said that more than half of the deaths and injuries inflicted on pedestrians took place at crossings and road intersections over the past 10 years, resulting in foreign media labeling Taiwan a “pedestrian hell.”
“Although ministry officials developed new programs to improve safety, there were still 400,000 pedestrian road incidents last year, a 6.7 percent increase from 2022. Though pedestrian deaths decreased by 14 percent, traffic incidents at crossings increased, with an increase of four deaths and 294 people injured, an increase of 3.3 percent from 2022,” it said.
“Fatalities and injuries at crossing and road intersections kept climbing to new highs in recent years,” the report said.
“These are a manifestation of our nation’s long years of prioritizing automobiles while ignoring the rights of pedestrians,” the report said.
“This causes a danger to people’s lives and our nation’s international image suffers. Officials in charge at the ministry and the Executive Yuan must take responsibility for this failure,” the report added.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS