I know this because I saw a TV interview with a construction industry consultant which said there is no law, at least for small contractors, to have a safety officer trained and on site…He said it’s time for Taiwan to model on developed countries in this aspect since it’s no longer a developing country.
1 Like
when i left the rock in 99, an average of 10 deaths per day in taiwan from traffic accidents and at least 1 in Taipei.
They had five minutes to warn the train? He and his buddies will now get a tsunami of public anger. What the hell is wrong with these people?
3 Likes
yes im sure an urgent call to 119 would have a chance to warn the train driver to stop immediately right where he was.
1 Like
Let me share something. In the 80s, good bud of mine (now sadly passed) and i used to go to Taoyuan to the Emporer cafe which was on the second floor of this nice (for Taoyuan) hotel. They had an awesome filippino band there ! We took the TzeChiang brown headless train there after work round 7pm and back on the 11pm train.
Was cheap and good fun, along with great music and cheap beer. What more can a lad want (oh and there were some adventures I wont share just now).
Anyway, my bud and I used to go to the first car of the train where a door separated us from the train driver and his assistant.
We can see and hear all that is going on. The door was largely a big heavy glass window on a metal frame with slats on it and was not soundproof.
The engineer (driver) was sitting in his little cubicle on the left and the assistant would sit on a pull up chair in the aisle. The train was an EMU so there was no locomotive per se.
It was very interesting to see how intense just a 30 min ride to Taoyuan was in the business office.
The Tzechiang is able to run about 110kph on those tracks which were really designed for 60kph transit.
Watching the train move along the surface tracks at 110kph was INTENSE because we were zooming past all these railway crossings and one can only hope that if there was a truck suddenly in the way that we could have stopped. I suspect quite strongly that we will NOT have been able to.
Taiwan RAilway admin trains are running at high speeds of up to 110kph on tracks designed for the good ol days when at most they hit 60kph. And even then there were quite a few crashes into trucks and cars at level crossings.
The sad fact is that these surface tracks should not handle high speed rail (even 60 kilometers per hour) was a problem let alone 110 to 120kph.
the HSR runs on dedicated track with zero crossings.
I was actually on a train one time that hit a car that was on a crossing. The train stopped way past the accident scene. It was one of those big heavy locomotives and the drivers suffered zero injuries . Good thing the people had gotten out of the car already so no injuries or deaths.
There are going to be more crashes on these surface tracks run by TRA.
WE just have to do the utmost each and every moment to prevent tragedies, but I am not sure the danger will be eliminated. The speed is too fast for surface tracks with crossings and roads and other stuff leading on to the tracks.
AS has been sadly proven, the driver can not stop the train in time in case of an emergency.
IT simply can not be stopped in time at 110kph. At 60kph its not even sure.
2 Likes
Sorry to sideline your nice comment (and this thread), but another forum is calling out to you for specifics [from above]:
Used Tires are used as fill in sites - I suspect that when that work on the other track is finished that they will become part of the fill. They are not popular in normal landfill dumps as they take too much space. I would guess that the accident track may well be similarly covered in future too - maybe already planned, but if not it soon will be. The area is probably prone to landslips, hence the reason for the current work - those open air tracks are only about 300m long with lengthy tunnels at either end.
2 Likes
I dont know what Taoyuan is like now. But in the 80s it was not all that fancy . There were a few small hotels and restaurants. Not a lot of places to go. The Emporer Cafe/ restaurant was THE PLACE to be at the time. Right downtown. There was the HOliday INN that was new then and pretty nice but thats not in downtown taoyuan.
I mentioned that a few posts up. Did they just sit around gawking instead of calling emergency ?
1 Like
Is that average for Asia? in Korea: On daily average 945 traffic accident victims On daily average, the number is 591.3 accidents with 16.1 deaths and 928.7 injured people. link https://www.koroad.or.kr/en_web/view/trfEnv3.do
Why why why Taiwanese always try to find some other place worse to compare Taiwan to ?
What does that achieve even if true? (Remember Korea has a much bigger pop).
There’s nothing about face here…The problem in Taiwan is that the trend has been getting WORSE starting from an already poor situation over the last few years.
I mean the driving test for scooters in particular is an unbelievable joke but it’s really a mess across the board…And the police !?!
According to this article he was also the site manager:
Whataboutism and red herring fallacies.
1 Like
Well, that is very serious and he’s going to get the book thrown at him, and quite rightly. The MOTC can sue themselves for not having a TRA safety official on-site, too. You cannot leave safety to one person or entity alone, certainly not to the contactor only. It is a joke.
1 Like
He was convicted of fraud as well previously.
And they let him be the site manager.
The MOTC and TRA are 90% responsible in my opinion.
4 Likes
I agree. In Taiwan, all the blame gets heaped on the one person at the end of the chain of responsibility in any serious accident. But they seldom go deeper and see the whole causation of error.
5 Likes
Train is supposed to be a much safer form of transport than bus or car. But TRA needs to be shaken up. Yea you should not be running high speed on those tracks. I know germany runs high speed trains on normal tracks but I’m not sure how they maintain safety. They did have a really bad train wreck which killed 150.
But I would guess safest way to sit on a high speed train is rear facing in the middle or back of the train.
So in the future only slow trains on the tra.
Usually the dead guy is blamed. This is universal. In this case they can’t, which makes things complicated and inconvenient.
3 Likes
So they were using the crane to move stuff, what stuff? And why during the daytime on a holiday (both not allowed for that site). So if he had companions and he was moving stuff, he already lied twice in his initial statements claiming that he just checked the site on his own, which was always suspicious, because why would he need a crane for doing this? Could this man be a pathological liar?
I was using gallows humour about how the driver/pilot etc is usually blamed for human error in these situations. Possibly not possible this time. Definitely poor taste on my part.