Ministry censured for road safety decline
‘NEGLIGENCE’: The decline in road safety is a manifestation of the nation’s long years of prioritizing automobiles while ignoring pedestrian rights, a Control Yuan report said
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 Chengchang (賴振昌) and Chao Yung-ching (趙永清) said.
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.