TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Police have identified the origin of the chunk of metal that killed a motorist in southern Taiwan last week.
While driving to work near the Wandan Interchange on Provincial Highway 88 at around 6:50 a.m. on March 17, a 62-old female teacher surnamed Lee (李) was struck on the head by a flying piece of metal roughly 30 by 15 centimeters and 2-3 cm thick. After working tirelessly to scan surveillance camera footage and screening 2,000 vehicles to find the source of the metal fragment, Pingtung County police on Sunday (March 20) announced that they had finally identified its source.
Based on surveillance camera footage of the incident, police found that the 4.9-kilogram piece of metal had flown from an opposite lane. Because the object flew toward Lee's vehicle in a fraction of a second, she had no time to react and died on the spot.
Police immediately formed a special team to initiate an investigation. Pingtung Precinct investigation squad head Yeh Hsien-wei (葉憲威) told the media on Sunday that 62 officers had reviewed footage from Provincial Highway 88, National Freeway 3, and surface streets in Chaozhou Township over the course of three days.
Moment metal object began flying towards Lee's car. (Pingtung County Police Bureau screenshot)
According to Yeh, police visited various large vehicle repair facilities and compared the parts to the item that had struck Lee through her windshield. After identifying the type of truck that would carry such a component, police screened footage from before the accident and Saturday morning (March 19) and finally managed to find the license plate of the truck.
Police found that the part first fell off a truck being driven by a 60-year-old man surnamed Hou (侯), reported CNA. About 10 minutes later, the tires from a semi-trailer truck driven by a man surnamed Hsu (許), 50, rolled over the object and kicked it up over the traffic divider and toward Lee's car.
On Sunday, the Pingtung County Police Bureau issued a press release announcing that both truck drivers had been transferred to the Pingtung District Prosecutor's Office to be investigated for negligent homicide (過失致死罪).
Investigators inspecting semi-trailer truck. (Pingtung County Police Bureau photo)
Investigators inspecting spot where metal part may have broken off. (Pingtung County Police Bureau photo)
Investigator photographing where part is suspected of having broken off. (Pingtung County Police Bureau photo)
