STOP BEEPING

Most of the time, the alarms go off when a bus pulls up to a stop where no turning is required, it stops, keeps beeping and subjecting children to 95-decibel torture, then re-enters traffic without any significant turn or blind-spot risk to vulnerable road users.

On top of that, the bus then sits at a red light for 60 seconds, continuously beeping in front of residential buildings, where the risk of hitting a vulnerable user is exactly zero, since a stationary bus hits nobody.

195 countries manage to protect pedestrians and cyclists without continuous external alarms. If this measure were truly essential to road safety, we would expect to see it adopted more widely, yet Taiwan stands alone in mandating it.

The Netherlands offers a particularly compelling example: one of the most cycle-dense countries in the world, where large articulated buses share daily road space with an extraordinary number of cyclists. Dutch roads manage this challenge without continuous beeping, and do so with road safety outcomes that consistently rank among the best in the world.

The beeping is so constant and ubiquitous that Taiwanese people have simply learned to tune it out. It has become background noise, some residents are not even aware these alarms exist, despite being surrounded by them daily.

This is textbook alarm fatigue: when a warning is triggered too frequently, it loses all meaning. A signal that everyone ignores is not a safety feature. It is just noise.

Research estimates that traffic noise in Taiwan causes over 4,200 premature deaths per year, more than ten times the number of fatal pedestrian accidents, while also contributing to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and infertility. Unlike the EU, which has regulated and mapped traffic noise for over two decades, Taiwan has yet to implement any noise monitoring or control measures.

The WHO recommends urban noise levels below 55 dB during the day and 40 dB at night. Construction sites require hearing protection above 85 dB and are legally capped at 90 dB. Maritime regulations (IMO / MLC 2006) limit ship engine rooms, one of the loudest working environments on earth, to 85-87 dB. In both cases, trained workers wear ear protection in controlled environments.

These bus alarms emit 95 dB, louder than a construction site, louder than a ship engine room, and discharge that noise directly at bedroom windows, around the clock, with no protection, no regulation, and no recourse, aimed at children, infants, and sleeping residents.

A noise level that would be illegal to impose on a hardhat worker or a seasoned sailor is being freely fired into homes, day and night.

Noise research consistently shows that irritation and stress are not solely determined by volume, the type of sound matters as much as its loudness. Alarms are by nature sharp, repetitive, and intrusive, and these beeps are no exception. Even at reduced levels, they trigger a stress response, elevating cortisol and keeping the nervous system in a state of low-grade alert. Unlike ambient city noise, the brain cannot fully habituate to alarm sounds; they are neurologically processed as urgent signals, every single time.

For a significant portion of the population, including people with anxiety, sensory sensitivities, or autism, repetitive alarm noise is not merely unpleasant. It is genuinely debilitating. A 70 dB alarm can cause more distress than 90 dB of steady traffic noise. Volume alone does not capture what these beeps do to people.

No other country in the world has implemented this system. Not Japan, not South Korea, not Germany, not the United States, not the Netherlands, not a single one among 195 countries feels the need for such alarms to ensure road safety.

The Taiwanese government has claimed this practice is “commonly used abroad.” It is not. This statement is demonstrably false. No country mandates high-decibel alarms tied to turning indicators on buses, trucks, vans, or any vehicle over 3.5 tonnes. The system exists nowhere else on earth. Taiwan did not adopt an international standard, it invented a noise no one else wanted, imposed it on its residents, and then misrepresented it as global common practice to avoid accountability.

For years after the alarms were mandated, Taiwan's accident figures remained among the worst in the developed world. Nearly 400,000 accidents were recorded in 2024 alone, with CNN describing Taiwan's streets as a “living hell for pedestrians.” Pedestrian fatalities rose 15.5% in early 2024 compared to 2023.

The modest improvements seen in 2025 have nothing to do with beeping alarms. They are the direct result of concrete infrastructure investments: thousands of crosswalk upgrades, redesigned intersections, increased fines for drivers failing to yield, and NT$40 billion allocated for pedestrian safety improvements. The leading causes of fatal accidents, distracted driving, failure to yield, and unlicensed driving, are behavioral and infrastructural problems. A beeping alarm does not address a single one of them.

The entire premise of turning alarms rests on one fact: large vehicles have dangerous blind spots. That is true, for an 18-wheeler with a 20-foot front no-zone and side blind spots wide enough to swallow entire lanes of traffic.

But Taiwan's regulation applies to anything over 3.5 tonnes, capturing small delivery vans and light utility vehicles barely larger than an SUV, sitting low to the ground, with full mirror coverage and sightlines no worse than any ordinary car. And yet even this arbitrary threshold is not consistently applied: Hyundai Porter trucks and UBike service vans, vehicles well under 3.5 tonnes, are also fitted with these alarms, with no legal obligation to do so. Vehicles no bigger than a standard car, beeping for no reason, covering no blind spot that a wing mirror doesn't already handle.

The hazard the alarm claims to address does not exist at that scale. The noise does.

Modern vulnerable road user (VRU) detection systems use radar, cameras, and ultrasonic sensors to identify pedestrians and cyclists in real time. When someone is actually detected in a danger zone, the driver receives an alert: visual, or a targeted sound inside the cabin. No external noise. No 95 dB alarm fired at residential windows. A precise warning, triggered only when a human being is genuinely at risk.

This is not experimental. Since 2024, the EU has mandated VRU detection on all new heavy vehicles. Buses across France, Germany, and the Netherlands are already equipped. Japan uses camera-based turn-assist systems that alert drivers with zero external noise.

Taiwan chose to blast 95 dB at everyone, all the time, whether or not anyone is there. The alternative exists. It works. Other countries use it. Taiwan has simply chosen not to.