TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- A savage fight broke out on a Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) train on Monday (July 29), after an unruly passenger refused to make a fare adjustment.
On Monday at 1:10 p.m., a man wearing a white dress shirt swiped his EasyCard before boarding a TRA Taroko train in Taipei bound for Hualien, reported UDN. When the conductor saw that he had not properly paid for his ticket, he asked that he make a fare adjustment, but the obstinate passenger refused.
A man wearing a black, short-sleeve shirt then tried to persuade the man to make up the fare. However, this only agitated the man wearing white even further.
Soon, the two became engaged in a verbal altercation which eventually erupted into a full-scale fistfight. In video of the fracas shot by a passenger, the man in white can be seen throwing four right crosses in a row at the man in black.
Man in white (left), man in black (right). (Photo from netizen surnamed Lin)
The larger, stronger man in the black shirt then returns fire with several punches of his own and takes the unruly passenger's back before pushing him away. Both combatants then stepped off the train at 1:38 p.m, according to the report.
After the dust settled, the man in white had suffered facial trauma and was sent to the hospital by ambulance. Both parties are pressing charges against each other for assault.
According to a preliminary police investigation, the 30-year-old man in white was taking the No. 228 Taroko train to eastern Taiwan on a business trip, reported CNA. Because he had swiped an EasyCard, normally meant for MRT trains and short-distance trains, the conductor asked him to make a fare adjustment (補票), but the man refused, and that was when the dispute began.
