Four Northern Cities and Counties Collaborate to Apprehend Squid Vehicles on November 12

In order to ensure air quality, the Taoyuan County Government collaborated with inspectors from three regional Environmental Protection Agencies from Keelung City, Taipei City and Taipei County for the simultaneous implementation of the Northern regional air quality inspection on November 12, at the toll booths and the surrounding roads on Highway 1 within their precinct. The scale of inspection has expanded to focus on diesel powered vehicles for smog tests and controls. The Environmental Protection Agency reminds drivers to pay regular attention on issues related to fixing and maintenance of their vehicles, avoid damaging air quality and incurring punishment. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency of the Taoyuan County Government, Li-ling Chen said that the focus of this implementation is to enforce excess exhaust released by diesel vehicles, and to inspect and nab illegal gasoline and squid vehicles. The key areas of inspection include city or county boundaries, important roads surrounding the highways. Vehicles stopped by inspectors are checked according to the “Empty Load High Speed Acceleration Exhaust Test” in the “Testing Methods and Procedures for Quantifying Diesel Engine Exhaust.” Besides this, screening for the quality of fuel is also conducted. If any abnormal color or odor is observed in the fuel, a sample is collected for inspection to confirm whether it is illegal. If a vehicle fails to pass the exhaust test, its owner could be obliged to pay a fine between $1,500 to 20,000 NTD. For usage of illegal fuel, the fine is between $5,000 to 75,000 NTD. In order to effectively identify and seize vehicles that cause inordinate amounts of pollution, the Taoyuan County Government especially applied license plate identifying systems in routines conducted in roadside inspection. Using an image identifying system to differentiate license plates in the target zone, and comparing them with the database of vehicles with high rates of pollution, then a computer data match is conducted objectively to determine if the vehicles passing the target zone are potential sources of pollution. With the assistance of the conventional visual judgments based on the appearance of vehicles to determine if they are potentially polluting, the chances to identify polluting vehicles have increased. Press Contact: 0926376659 Jo-chun Chu, Head of Air Pollution Division, Environmental Protection Agency, Taoyuan County Government Press Release: 0921250524 Ho-fen Sun, Executive Office, Environmental Protection Agency, Taoyuan County Government