In Taiwan, a grandmother let her 7-year-old grandson sit on a scooter; the boy accidentally started it, leading to a horrific accident in which he was run over by a truck and killed. This is just too painful to watch.
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Taiwan has no age restrictions for children riding as passengers on motorcycles.
This accident, which reportedly occurred in Taiwan, is said to have taken place shortly after a grandmother placed her 7-year-old grandchild on a scooter. While Article 88 of Taiwan’s Road Traffic Safety Regulations limits the number of passengers on the back of a motorcycle to one and mandates the use of a helmet, there is no specific age-based regulation that outright prohibits children from riding as passengers. The Jing-Chuan Child Safety Foundation, a non-governmental organization, has issued warnings, stating that carrying children under the age of five on a motorcycle is inherently unsafe.
This situation is set against the backdrop of Taiwan having the highest number of motorcycles per 100 people in the world—approximately 60, surpassing Vietnam’s roughly 57—with motorcycles serving as a primary mode of daily transport for everything from commuting to ferrying children. As of 2021, Taiwan’s road traffic fatality rate stood at 12.7 per 100,000 population—about four times that of Japan—with approximately 60% of all traffic-related deaths attributed to motorcycle accidents.
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