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In an eye on exploring and developing tourism business in Kaohsiung City, the amphibious vehicles were purchased and imported on October 23rd, 2009. Because the amphibious vehicles are able to drive on road and water, the related laws and regulations for both watercraft and motor vehicles have to be met. As a matter of fact, the application for both “the Watercraft Safety Inspection” and “Motor Vehicle Registration” have been turned in to the Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau and Traffic Adjudication Office. The watercraft safety test has been carried out accordingly by CR, who is in charge of the boat investigation and safety inspection. As for commercial large passenger vehicle registration, the ARTC and VSCC are responsible for it and all necessary administrative processes are still in progress. In the meantime, to ensure the safety of operating amphibious vehicles which have never been operated in Taiwan before, the Kaohsiung City Government is authorized by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to draw up and make “The substitute regulations of Amphibious Vehicle Inspection” public. The Kaohsiung City Government has also built up a practical auditing system to keep the regulations up-to-date and to protect the rights and interests of both passengers and vehicle owners. As this kind of unique issues would happen more in the future and attract serious attentions on public safety and unexpected impact to our current transportation system, I would like to use it as the topic of my research. The purpose of this research is : (1) To study domestic and global current status of use and development of amphibious vehicles; (2) To check out national and local watercraft and vehicle safety inspection systems; (3) To assess the current amphibious vehicle inspection and management system of New Jersey, USA; (4) To compare and to clarify the similarities and differences between Taiwan’s and USA’s amphibious vehicle inspection and legal systems so that we are able to make ours complete and perfect. After a thorough and detailed analysis and comparison, my conclusion is we lack certain offices both nationally and locally which are in charge of making needed laws and regulations for managing any untraditional vehicles like amphibious vehicles. Without this effort, both the public and vehicles are by no means well secured and protected. In addition, currently there are no any offices which are fully authorized to issue amphibious vehicle driver’s licenses and to clarify the accurate definition of such untraditional vehicles. We are in dire need of an office which has such capability and authorization to do so.
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