TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The number of pedestrian traffic fatalities during the first quarter of 2024 showed a 15.5% rise from the same period last year, the government said Friday (May 31).

From January through March, 119 pedestrians died in traffic accidents, up from 103 during the first three months of 2023, according to a Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) survey. The main causes were motorized vehicles failing to give way to pedestrians at intersections or pedestrians crossing the street outside marked crossings, per CNA.

The number of pedestrians killed by cars not giving way more than doubled, from 11 in January-March 2023 to 24 during the first three months of this year. The MOTC said that following a campaign last year to persuade drivers to give way to pedestrians, some drivers had apparently resumed their bad habits.

Elderly people accounted for 73.1% of the victims, while most of the fatal accidents took place between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m., and between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., according to the MOTC report.

The U.S. news media organization CNN has described Taiwan’s streets as a “pedestrian hell.”

Nevertheless, the survey found that the overall number of traffic accidents had fallen 5.4% from January-March 2023, the number of deaths in all traffic accidents was down 4.8% to 772, and the number of injured had declined 5.6% to 13,364.