Taiwan’s road safety crisis: A minister’s regret

TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Wang Kwo-tsai, Taiwan's Minister of Transportation and Communication, said on Thursday (April 18) that his greatest regret as a minister was not focusing more on road safety as he prepares to step down from his post.

The admission was made at the Legislative Yuan at a meeting of the Transportation Committee.

During the meeting, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Li Kun-tse pointed out that Taiwan had 402,926 traffic accidents last year, resulting in 3,023 deaths and 539,535 injuries. In comparison, Japan, with a population 5.3 times larger than Taiwan, had only 307,930 traffic accidents, 2,678 deaths, and 365,595 injuries. 

Li also mentioned that Taiwan had 7.2% more traffic accidents and 8.1% more injuries last year than the year before. Rear-end collision injuries rose by 20.8%, while accidents involving minors between the ages of 0 and 12 jumped by 27.4%.

The minister admitted that he did not achieve his goal of reducing the number of deaths by 5% annually during his term. However, he claimed to have set the foundation for the funds and system, which had already shown results. In the second half of last year, there was a decline of 8.5% in the total traffic mortality rate and a fall of 10.78% in pedestrian deaths. This year, the downward trend is still there.

Meanwhile, regarding the "Road Traffic Management and Penalty Amendment Act," which stipulates that the maximum fine for ten minor traffic offenses is NT$1,200 and does not allow for reporting, DPP legislator Hsu Fu-kuei expressed concern that it might increase the workload of the police.

Liu Chen-an, head of the Traffic Division of the National Police Agency under the Ministry of Interior, pointed out that it was challenging to report violations due to the lack of digital equipment in the past.

However, since 2013, the number of digital recording devices has gradually increased. By 2017, there were about 1 million reported violations each year. Even with the number of reportable items reduced to 46 in 2022, there were still more than 8 million reports in 2023.

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