How do we make drivers yield to pedestrians at crosswalks?

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
5296

Not only that, but it’s also being done under the guise of helping the police officers who are so busy from handling the reports…which as was proven last time they removed citizen reporting of many types of illegal parking police officers became significantly busier because now they have to drive out and respond to every call instead of having officers at a desk to handle online reports.

Even the Taiwan Police Union and Taipei Taxi driver’s union will join the road safety flash mob events.

English article:

Road safety advocates plan march

  • By Wu Liang-yi and Jason Pan / Staff reporters

Advocates of road safety and pedestrian rights yesterday said they would organize a series of protests across the nation before gathering for a big march in Taipei next week to express their anger over the Executive Yuan’s decision to ease punishments for 10 traffic violations.

Citing the heavy burden placed on police by skyrocketing reports of traffic violations, the Cabinet on Thursday approved a proposal by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications that motorists who commit “minor traffic violations” listed in the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例) would not receive demerit points and people would not be able to receive cash rewards for reporting them.

Minor traffic violations refer to offenses that incur a fine of NT$1,200 or less.

They include talking on a mobile phone when riding a scooter, reversing a large vehicle without a guide at the rear, reversing a vehicle without paying attention to pedestrians, parking within 5m of fire truck entrances and exits, parking in front of fire hydrants, illegally parking in designated spaces for the disabled, and smoking or lighting cigarettes while driving.

Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance director Chen Kai-ning (陳愷寧) demanded that the Cabinet retract the changes.

“Why is the Cabinet pushing these changes, which infringe on the basic right of survival for people with disabilities?” she asked.

Chen said the group would be joined by Taiwan Safety Drivers Watch, Taiwan Traffic Safety Association, Taiwan Association for Disability Rights, Student Pedestrian Union, Taiwan Police Union and Taipei Taxidrivers Union for “flash mob” actions on the streets at 10am on Sunday in major cities, including Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Yunlin, Tainan and Kaohsiung.

This would be followed by a large march through Taipei’s major streets the following Sunday, Chen said.

“We demand that the government listen to the voice of the people… This easing of traffic violations is incomprehensible, so we ask lawmakers from the three major parties to block these unreasonable amendments,” she said.

Not sure why no cash rewards were mentioned in the MOTC approved propsal. That hasn’t been a thing for traffic reporting for years.

6 Likes
5297

I’m going to be the bad guy for a moment and point out that Taiwan’s Digital Minister hasn’t moved the needle at all in terms of improving tech within Taiwan, which makes me wonder exactly what Audrey Tang does, other than occasionally show up for interviews with international press? There isn’t an APP in Taiwan that isnt buggy as heck, English versions of banking apps, when they exist at all, are almost always skeletons of the Chinese version, and all government websites still look like something from 1997. Adding tech education to Taiwan’s schools or making website design open source or whatever Audrey has done is hardy ground breaking when the international community within Taiwan, not to mention people trying to access information related to Taiwan from outside, will, 99% of the time, see massively outdated tech that could be brought up to at least 2015 standards within minutes if they just hired a few moderately competent, self-taught computer programmers. Yet that hasn’t happened in the past eight years. No one even talks about that except we whining folks over here on forumosa.

All governments have high levels of incompetence, but Taiwan really shines in this area. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about tech, pedestrian safety, drug use, drunk driving, education, safety in preschools, elder abuse…the people in charge are proud to stand up and introduce themselves as important people before leaving to go about the difficult task of grabbing drinks with their buddies and coming up with more ways to take more bribes and waste tax payer money.

7 Likes
5298

@au is on this forum, and I have to say her silence on the issue is strange. Isn’t this a great opportunity to talk about how technology can improve road safety in Taiwan?

1 Like
5299

Ministry of Digital Affairs has other focus than road safety.

Ministry of Transportation and Communications (and other local city mayor’s etc.) are responsible for issues raised in this thread.

3 Likes
5300

I agree, but there are plenty of opportunities for collaboration. The CDC was responsible for COVID response, but we saw all sorts of technological innovations out of Tang’s team to help. Why would this be any different?

3 Likes
5301

Probably lack of urgency. The road issues can’t be fixed in a few months with some digital wizardry.
The society needs to change with better education during drivers license process. The shift will take generations.

Lack of enforcement is also mostly due to shortage of police/overburdened by too many tasks. I mentioned already they need to make another institution handling traffic violations and such. No need for a fully trained policemen to write parking tickets.

5302

I’m with you on that, and I think we can agree there’s no consensus anywhere (not even on this forum) on how to fix these issues. In the end, if any progress does get made, it will definitely be a combination of things. In my opinion, while hiring “meter maid” types to write tickets would help, it wouldn’t solve the issue.

I’m not asking @au and her agency to solve the issue either. I’m asking how she views the issue and what things, from a technology angle, could contribute to less deaths. Obviously we’re seeing more and more 科技執法, right? I don’t think the ministry of digital of affairs is involved with that, but could they be? Is there some potential AI angle on helping the issue? Could the digital ministry produce some kind of technology to aid police officers with enforcement? These are all tangible examples of ways the digital ministry could contribute to a solution.

5303

Do you think collaboration will give her a higher salary? Why would she give herself extra work?

5304

Why not? Use cameras to insta-fine those red light runners for a start. I’m sure there’s tons of tech that can be used and is just being chosen not to be because the MOTD and the useless sacks of shit cops like it that way.

2 Likes
5305

The end does not justify the means.
We don’t want to descend into a complete surveillance state to fix road safety.
Taiwan already has so many cameras everywhere. Making a system to connect them all to some AI enforcement opens up doors to abuse of that system. It is just some added code to let it track every movement of a person. At the moment tracking down a suspects needs to be done manually.

5306

That’s a pretty bleak perspective. Whether or not it’s true, I guess I just still have hope that maybe some high-level government officials have a vision of a future that’s better than the present, and that doing whatever they can to reduce dead citizens in the streets is a universal good.

5307

I don’t know man, I’m not the digital minister. I’m not proposing any ideas to them, I’m just saying it’s a relevant opportunity for her to speak on the issue.

5308

Government officials are just like you and me. We clock in, do what we’re told, shit on company time, drag out our work so our boss doesn’t give us extra work, and then clock out.

On a deeper level, Taiwan is a very libertarian country. The government mostly doesn’t see it as their job to force anyone to keep the law and stay alive. They see it as the personal responsibility of the road user.

5309

It’ll definitely bring problems from people who dont want to change, or be told what to do, or lose face by admitting it could be done better if someone else does it…

2 Likes
5310

This. You don’t want to step on toes and let people loose face in Taiwan. Especially politicians.
If MODA is approached for some collaboration, they will likely offer technical support.

5311

Can anyone explain to me why scooter riders in Taipei City now often stop for pedestrians when those pedestrians are still miles (10-20m) away? I thought there were some 3m rule or something. Are they just overly frightened to be punished or is the rule now that no vehicles move when there is someone crossing, whereever that person is? :thinking:

5312

I just saw on Instagram a video announcing that Taiwan is now rolling out AI smart traffic enforcement. The video showed a camera that could detect whether cars came to a complete stop at stop lines.

I guess Ms. Tang is one step ahead of you. :wink:

5313

Red light cameras are rampant in cities like Chicago and they just send you the bill in the mail. This could VERY quickly generate MASSIVE profit for the city of Taipei or the whole country. Enough to hire the top traffic experts of Japan and Germany to come in and fix the whole county’s traffic issues even if they only charged NT$200 for every red light runner probably, considering how much red light running there is.

Many cities have sensors near parking spaces to detect when a vehicle is there, which is how the meter maids are so quick to arrive on the scene. The problem in Taiwan is that people don’t really park in legal parking spaces. To catch the morons who think parking their car in the middle of the road is in any way acceptable, that would probably require hard infrastructure like concrete medians on all roads (forcing a true one lane situation/other cars can’t just drive around the recklessly parked vehicles) but we know this and there’s no political will/the plastics and paint companies need their cut.

5314

Would that count for both red lights? for example, if the light is yellow you just keep going. But if the second light you pass changes to red while passing would you get fined?

I’d say only fine on the first one. But then people would complain that they would get caught when they were trying to go through on yellow.

5315

No. In the US, the cameras usually only point at the stop line, so nobody would know if you ran the second red light (which is perfectly legal anyway).

1 Like