Taiwan army CM11 tank rides up onto Miaoli highway median after suspected brake failure

A Taiwanese army CM11 tank lost control on a downhill stretch of Provincial Highway 13 in Miaoli city at about 3:30 p.m. on Friday, 16 October 2026, and ran up onto the concrete central median, where it was left stuck. No soldiers or civilians were hurt. The army's Eighth Army Corps said the most likely cause was a fault in the tank's braking system.

In a written statement, the corps command said the tank belonged to the 564th Armored Brigade and was on a mission movement when it struck the divider on the Nanmiao section of the highway, near the 31-kilometre mark on Zhongshan Road. Police who attended the scene confirmed that the driver had not been drinking, and responsibility for the crash is being assessed by the police.

Footage described by TVBS showed the tank drifting steadily to the left before it climbed the median in a cloud of dust, with the front of the hull pushing into the opposite carriageway as following cars braked hard. The broadcaster reported that the driver, after the apparent mechanical failure, deliberately steered into the divider to avoid hitting other traffic and limit the damage.

Police and military personnel directed traffic around the wreckage while an ambulance stood by, and a stretch of the concrete median was smashed. Motorists told reporters they had at first assumed they were watching an exercise until they saw the broken divider and the arriving police cars. Pictures of the tank perched on the median spread quickly on social media.

The Eighth Army Corps apologised for the disruption to road users and said it would cooperate fully with the police investigation to establish the cause. It said the case would be handled under the armed forces' rules for military vehicle insurance and accident claims, and that it would keep tightening driving-safety training for its troops to ensure units move safely.

It is not the first time a CM11, known in Taiwan as the Brave Tiger, has come to grief on a public road. In October 2025 a tank of the 542nd Armored Brigade shed a track centre-guide part on Provincial Highway 61 in Miaoli during a 74-tank Lu Sheng No. 1 replenishment movement, causing several cyclists to crash and injuring six. In May 2022 a 584th Brigade CM11 on a readiness drill hit a traffic-signal pole on a median in Hukou, Hsinchu.

None of these incidents caused serious harm, but together they underline a practical problem for Taiwan's armoured units. Heavy tracked vehicles have to share busy civilian roads to reach training areas and, in a crisis, their dispersal and defensive positions, so brake and track reliability on older tanks is a readiness issue as well as a road-safety one.