Taiwan to hold traffic accident press conferences

台灣舉行交通事故記者會

Over half a million people injured yearly in traffic accidents in Taiwan


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said on Sunday (Dec. 12) he will require the traffic authorities to hold monthly press conferences to dissect the country’s problems and solutions in regard to traffic accidents.

The press conferences, which will begin in late December or early January, are in response to a proposal made by members of the public via the online public policy participation platform created by the National Development Council (NDC), CNA reported.

According to statistics, over 3,000 people die and over 500,000 are injured in traffic accidents in Taiwan every year. Therefore, people have proposed via the platform that the minister of transportation and communications hold weekly “traffic epidemic command center” press conferences to report traffic accident statistics, causes, and solutions.

The proposal stated that traffic signage is a mess nationwide, and road surface markings are often changed by local politicians for various reasons. At the same time, the warnings of engineers go unheeded.

According to the proposal, a total of 1,709 people died from January to July in traffic accidents in Taiwan, which is four times the COVID death toll for the same period. Over many decades, the problem has gone unaddressed, the proposal stated.