Groups promote traffic safety for young people

The CEO for Jing Chuan, Lin Yue-ching, provided the audience with statistics regarding the number of young people, ages 0-24, injured or killed in traffic-related accidents island-wide since 2002. She made note of pointing out that the age groups with the highest number of deaths over 2005-07 were 20-24 year olds, with 322 total deaths, and 15-19 year olds, with 209 total deaths.

This is most shocking when compared to the 25, 25 and 26 total deaths respectively for the younger age groups over the years.

Lin attempted to explain the discrepancy by saying it is during these years that young people are beginning to drive scooters and cars themselves. Compounded with the fact that these young people do not have much experience in operating a scooter or car is that they are so excited about being able to drive, they do not pay as much attention to their actual driving as they should, she added.

Lin then cited a report from May, which said that over the past three years, Tunghai University in Taichung has seen its students involved in 237 auto accidents, resulting in a total of five deaths, statistically the highest for people ages 0-24 in any single area. In an effort to explain what could be done to resolve this issue, Lin referenced a policy put into place by National Chiao Tung University, which prohibits first-year students from having scooters or cars on campus.

According to Lin, the university has seen a significant reduction in the number of auto accidents among its student population.

Yeh Da-hua, Chief Secretary for Youth Right Organization, echoed a statement made by speakers from both organizations, when she said during her presentation that it would only take NT$17 a year per child to put the proper safety measures into effect. She continued by saying that while the government has tried to address these issues monetarily, it is not properly allocating funds to the areas where funds are most needed.

In response to this, Legislator Chen Chie-rhu said she hopes that she can see the laws adapted to better meet the needs of young people in regards to the issue of traffic safety. She went on to say that outside of Taipei and Kaohsiung, where mass transportation is relatively convenient, young people are not finding a suitable substitute to driving their own vehicles. Because of this, Legislator Yeh urges people to petition the local governments to make mass transportation a real alternative to driving for young people.

Tsai Ke-si, a university student and traffic safety activist present at the conference, is organizing a student-led petition to create bus-only lanes, where passengers can get on and off the bus without forcing the bus to pull over to the side of the road, cutting through the scooter lane in doing so.

This kind of lane can be seen in larger cities in Taiwan, like Taipei. Tsai feels that this will cut down on the number of scooters involved in accidents with public buses.