TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A video surfaced Tuesday (June 18) showing a woman admonishing an elderly man for pressuring a student to give up his priority seat.
Over the past few days there has been a rash of disputes over priority seats on the Taipei MRT, Taiwan Railway Corporation trains, and public buses. A Keelung resident posted a video to Facebook showing an incident on the No. 505 bus to the city's Dawulun neighborhood on Tuesday, reported Liberty Times.
Upon boarding, an elderly man asked a student occupying a priority seat to give it up for an older woman. The elderly man repeated his request multiple times, prompting a female passenger to say, "Don't rush the young person."
The elderly man responded, "I was not rushing him, I was just asking him."
The middle-aged woman said education is different now and young people are also tired. The atmosphere on the bus soon became heated.
The bus driver said that priority seats do not belong to the elderly and asked passengers to remain calm and avoid arguing.
Cheng Wen-peng (鄭文彭), the chief of operations at the Bus Management Office was cited by Liberty Times as saying in similar disputes, drivers will broadcast messages to advise passengers to stay calm and maintain order. If conflicts escalate, they will seek assistance from the police.
Whether priority seats should be reserved exclusively for the elderly remains controversial, with emphasis on guidance rather than strict enforcement, said Cheng. Drivers focus on operating the vehicle to ensure the safety of all passengers, added Cheng.
