By KHT Staff. Images via Yi Li Mi (一粒米) FB page.
KAOHSIUNG — Kaohsiung-based television host and online personality Rémy Gils said he was nearly hit by a vehicle while using a crosswalk Sunday night, prompting questions about whether footage from a nearby business can be used to pursue a traffic-violation report.
Gils, who is known online as Yi Li Mi (一粒米), said the driver left without stopping after he shouted at the vehicle. A nearby business had captured the incident on a security camera and agreed to let police obtain the footage, according to a Liberty Times report.
He said officers initially told him that third-party camera footage could serve only as supporting evidence, and that a report of the alleged violation would require video recorded on his own phone.
Gils questioned how a pedestrian facing an oncoming vehicle could be expected to take out a phone, record its license plate and document the alleged violation while avoiding being hit.
He wrote that he had lived in Taiwan for 20 years and considers it home, but that the incident was the first time he had felt a marked crosswalk did not necessarily make him safe.
In an update Monday morning, Gils said police had contacted him again, obtained nearby surveillance footage and identified the vehicle as they worked to clarify what happened.
Gils said he was not attacking police or trying to turn the incident into a larger dispute. He said he wanted a clear answer on whether independently recorded video can establish the facts and protect pedestrians.
Born in France’s Provence region, Gils came to Taiwan in 2006 and later became the first foreigner to host a fully Taiwanese-language television program. He has written books on the Bunun and Amis languages, as well as Taiwanese, and was granted Republic of China citizenship in 2021 as a high-level professional without having to give up his French nationality, according to CNA’s report on his naturalization.
His Chinese name, 吉雷米, is pronounced similarly to “a grain of rice” in Taiwanese, giving rise to the name Yi Li Mi.
