By Eryk Michael Smith/Staff. AI illustration image/photos via Liberty Times.
PINGTUNG — The Pingtung County Government has confirmed to Kaohsiung Times that eight speed camera poles along a 70-kilometer stretch extending south from the Nanzhou Interchange (南州交流道) toward Kenting have been removed.
The removals are part of a countywide reduction that eliminated 16 speed camera poles across Pingtung.
The Pingtung Police Bureau Traffic Division (屏東縣政府警察局交通隊) said only four fixed speed camera poles and two interval speed enforcement zones remain active along that corridor.
The changes will improve road safety by reducing sudden braking hazards, authorities said. Previously, after exiting Freeway 3, drivers heading south on Provincial Highway 1 (台1線) and then Provincial Highway 26 (台26線) encountered speed limits that varied sharply over short distances. A limit might be 50 kph for a kilometer or two, rise to 70, then drop to 40 while passing through a village.
Speed limits along the primary 70-kilometer tourist route have now been unified at the standard provincial highway limit of 70 kph. Police said the change was made to eliminate erratic speed-limit variations, which disrupted traffic flow and increased the risk of rear-end collisions caused by startled drivers braking suddenly after seeing a new sign.
According to Traffic Division statistics, Pingtung County previously ranked third nationwide with 109 speed-detection sites. Unsurprisingly to many who frequently drive to Kenting and back, news reports confirmed that many of those fixed poles along the route were not functional, but rather decoys used to deter speeding. In fact, across Pingtung County’s roughly 1,500 kilometers of roads, fewer than 40 fixed camera poles have, or had, functional radar units, averaging about one live camera per 40 kilometers.
Traffic police said removing “unreasonable” camera locations has helped reduce fixed-camera speeding citations by more than 60 percent in 2025, from over 100,000 violations to approximately 40,000 cases.
Some might say fewer cameras obviously means fewer citations, but police said the more important measure is that traffic accidents along the same stretch have also decreased.
