Department of Transportation

According to a newspaper report on March 8th, “Some small intersections having pedestrian scrambles even cause more traffic accidents. By randomly sampling 35 intersections, only 14 intersections were found to have experienced declining numbers of traffic accidents while 12 other intersections, on the contrary, showed an increase in the number of traffic accidents. The effects of the policy are doubtful.” As examined by the Taipei City Traffic Engineering Office, each pedestrian scramble is implemented during specific time intervals, e.g. 7:00 – 8:00 daily at the entrance of lane 22 of Wende Road, and 11:00 – 23:00 at the intersection of Jingye 3rd Road and Lequn 3rd Road on weekends and public holidays; in addition, there are different types of resulting traffic accidents (such as collisions between vehicles and between vehicles and pedestrians). Regarding pedestrian casualties occurring within and outside pedestrian scramble implementation hours from January to December, 2011, the injury toll fell from 7 to 2 at the entrance of Lane 22 of Wende Road during pedestrian scramble implementation hours, while no pedestrian injuries had occurred at the intersection of Jingye 3rd Road and Lequn 3rd Road during pedestrian scramble implementation hours, although two pedestrians were injured outside the hours.
Furthermore, an analysis on traffic accidents occurring at 150 pedestrian scrambles implemented within Taipei City by the Transportation Bureau in October, 2012, compared pedestrian casualties at the implemented intersections with the average pedestrian casualties for the whole City; of these, 129 scrambles, accounting for 86%, showed significant effects after implementation. This illustrates that the implementation of pedestrian scrambles is still an effective way to reduce the number of accidents resulting from collisions between pedestrians and turning vehicles. At the same time, for those intersections where the ratio of pedestrian casualties is still high for times outside the pedestrian scramble implementation hours, extension of pedestrian scramble implementation hours will be further reviewed. In addition, in terms of the causes of traffic accidents, these are mainly drivers’ violation of signal control and failure to give way to pedestrians, and pedestrians’ failure in following traffic signals when going through intersections. Given that most of the traffic accidents were caused by violations from drivers and pedestrians, Taipei City Police Department has been requested to include intersections where violations are more likely to occur in its pedestrian-first project, in order to enhance law enforcement. On the other hand, by means of a transportation engineering approach, a red-light count-down timing device has been added at required locations. In addition to urging drivers to give way to pedestrians, Taipei City Department of Transportation has also requested pedestrians to abide by traffic lights and quickly walk through intersections. Taipei City Department of Transportation continues to enhance its promotion of traffic regulations and requests concerned law enforcement agencies to fulfill the implementation, in order to establish a good traffic culture where drivers and pedestrians respect each other and pedestrians are given way in traffic. Please feel free to call Taipei City’s 1999 Citizen Hotline (or 02-27208889 when dialing from outside the city). If you have any questions, specially-assigned staff will be available to help.

2013-04-03