Department of Transportation

Law enforcement strengthened for pedestrian road crossing In order to reduce the number of accidents involving pedestrians and motorcycles at intersections, the Taipei City Department of Transportation (DOT) is successively implementing “pedestrian scramble” at intersections throughout the City where there is heavy traffic and more intersecting between pedestrians and turning traffic. By utilizing traffic signals to separate the time at which pedestrians and vehicles cross the intersection, conflicts are reduced, thus protecting the safety of pedestrians.
DOT has conducted a study on pedestrian casualties inside and outside the implementation period of pedestrian scramble at 150 intersections in the City that were installed before the end of June 2012, and has found that 133 locations have shown a significant effect after the implementation of pedestrian scramble (Approx. 89%), demonstrating that pedestrian scramble is an effective method of reducing conflict between pedestrians and turning traffic. Also it is found that there are 17 locations (Approx. 11%) with higher pedestrian incident rate due to the non-compliance of pedestrians with relevant traffic regulations (see details shown in the attached table). Upon further examination of the causes of the accidents, it was found that pedestrians not crossing at the crosswalk, not obeying signals and vehicles not giving way to pedestrians, each made up approximately one third of the causes.
It is very easy for accidents to occur when pedestrians do not obey the relevant laws when crossing the roads. The DOT urges that when crossing the roads, it is very important to take the crosswalk and follow the indication of the pedestrian only signal (the “little green man”). Certainly, vehicles should also follow traffic signals and give way to pedestrians.
To facilitate pedestrian safety at intersections, DOT created an easy slogan for pedestrian road crossing: “STOP, LOOK, TURN, WAVE and GO”, i.e., STOP at the sidewalk, LOOK for the little green man (signal), TURN left and right and wait for the cars to stop, WAVE and smile to express your thanks, and then GO with peace of mind. The Traffic Police Corps and various branches have also formulated the “yield to pedestrians” law enforcement project, meaning that police officers performing traffic control duties at various intersections will block cars to give way to pedestrians, blow whistles to remind pedestrians to speed up, assist elderly and those in need to cross the intersection safely, direct the vehicles to pass through, and at the same time, strengthen exhortation and law enforcement, especially at the 17 intersections where road users are prone to violate traffic regulations, in order to ensure pedestrian safety.

2012-10-24