It is like my beef with education here. So they go to Harvard. Big deal. They still claim that they use English letters to write their name in English and still get defrauded by any snake oil master and their most brilliant high score Math and Science champs still tie their shoelaces in the middle of the road and I would not trust them near a sewer grate less they drop their cellphone/IDs and any other valuables in it. It is not just that they lack the street smarts and indigenous suspicion we Latinos must develop to survive. It is just that brains are not engaged in a protective mode. They just “float” in an existence, a bubble, where no new knowledge an penetrate not be applied. They can’t adapt. Which is why they plow through traffic…[/quote]
Mostly harsh and unfounded criticism of the Taiwanese there. Having a bad day, Icon? [/quote]
Monday morning in a gummit office. 28 degrees indoors -AC is on. What you think?
It is like my beef with education here. So they go to Harvard. Big deal. They still claim that they use English letters to write their name in English and still get defrauded by any snake oil master and their most brilliant high score Math and Science champs still tie their shoelaces in the middle of the road and I would not trust them near a sewer grate less they drop their cellphone/IDs and any other valuables in it. It is not just that they lack the street smarts and indigenous suspicion we Latinos must develop to survive. It is just that brains are not engaged in a protective mode. They just “float” in an existence, a bubble, where no new knowledge an penetrate not be applied. They can’t adapt. Which is why they plow through traffic…[/quote]
Mostly harsh and unfounded criticism of the Taiwanese there. Having a bad day, Icon? [/quote]
Monday morning in a gummit office. 28 degrees indoors -AC is on. What you think?[/quote]
Fair enough. Most people all round the world are feckless. Don’t believe the Taiwanese are any worse than any others. Hope your day improves.
From my experience, in Taiwan people only check mirrors in cars and on scooters to check on their pimpels and hair, make-up.
But putting a mirror at the feet end of the bed is a no-no … must be covered when not used, otherwise the mirror spirit will steal your soul during the night.
This from a guy who commented too and brought up the UNLUCKY to look in mirror meme in Taiwan: he now adds:
''Yes, it’s true! At first, I only read it somewhere and did not think it was true… until I found a Taipei taxi driver not doing it, and also a friend did the same! And he explained the unlucky part to me…
Actually, if you drive in Taiwan, it’s quite obvious just by watching people drive. People (even moped riders) will just fly out of a small road onto a man road without checking and in the countryside they will fly through red traffic lights without looking either way on the road they are supposed to be crossing and waiting for a green light for (I once witnessed a nasty accident right in front of me like this).
Taiwan really has the most insane drivers on the planet. Whose superstitious beliefs leads to many accidents, injuries and deaths. And wonder why they have many accidents when they drive outside of Taiwan (people are not expecting them to drive so badly for starters, so don’t know how to react to them)’’
Well I was told during my driving test here that you shouldn’t use your signal lights when changing lanes because “it’s distracting to other drivers” so it wouldn’t surprise me if something equally stupid existed for the lack of shoulder checks and mirror use.
After two decades of driving here I’ve chalked the clueless, suicidal, ‘coming thru!’ behavior on the highways up to an inability to fully grasp the laws of physics. I’ve seen the same behavior in manufacturing. ‘If you do this, this will happen.’ Blank stare. Twenty times later, ‘If you do this, this will happen.’ Same blank stare.
That inabilty to adequately grasp the laws of physics, such as the principle that if you cut off power to your one good engine you’re going down, is exacerbated by the little emperor upbringing most locals undergo here. Putting a little emperor in charge of a motorized vehicle is bound to end up badly. Then there’s a dollop of ‘toss the bones and you’re good to go’ in there too. The whole thing is complicated but the root cause remains the physics.
Bottom line is the only way to keep from going crazy about the situation is to just grab your ankles everytime you prepare to rejoin the fray and take it like a man.
[quote=“Winston Smith”]
That inabilty to adequately grasp the laws of physics, such as the principle that if you cut off power to your one good engine you’re going down, is exacerbated by the little emperor upbringing most locals undergo here. [/quote]
How true and well said… bitter only for those who are victims of such incompetence - especially so if those clueless culprits are celebrated as heroes. Pathetic and sad.
I don’t have any statistics, but it seems like there are far fewer accidents in Taiwan than I saw in US. My theory is that there are so many really horrible drivers that the rest of them have honed their defensive skills to a very high level. (I certainly have). It’s only when two horrible drivers get together that there is an accident. And for the most part, it’s obvious they don’t pay any attention to what’s behind or beside them. Even slightly in front isn’t important. They use about a 120degree field of view. The bad driving is a direct result of inadequate driver training/testing and an almost complete lack of traffic law enforcement. If these scooter riders rode in the US like they do in Taiwan they would all be dead within 1 week. It would be interesting to make a list of the special Taiwanese traffic maneuvers we see. Like, “cutting in front of the left turn line”, “sounding the horn to announce I’m blowing the red light”, “hurry up and make the left turn just before the light changes green”, etc…
One interesting thing I’ve noticed is that you rarely 't see much overtly or passive aggressive driving like you do in the US. Tail gating is ignored. Cut somebody off and they just don’t care. Horn honking is rare, and I’ve never seen a middle finger, but perhaps they have some other gesture. I think the main reason you don’t have that behavior is because of the dark windows. It totally depersonalizes the driving.
So we can complain all we want about the driving style here, but they make it work. They move a ton of vehicles down narrow roads fairly efficiently and with relatively few incidents. Pretty amazing really.
Not true, it takes only one bad driver for an accident not 2. Even if you are a great driver if some idiot pulls out infront of you without looking where he is going its going to be hard to avoid and it is no fault of your own.
I saw a video last week. A girl was driving across a main road, the lights were red so there shouldnt of been any traffic so she only looked ahead of her. Unfortunately an ambulance was driving through in an emergency with sirens on. It hit her and she died. This no observation way of driving is playing with your life. You can see in the video that right up until the final moment she did not look right and see the ambulance. So easily avoided.
The last word i would use to describe driving here is amazing.
one of the reasons people don’t escalate driving incidents is because of the high chance of violent conflict. another may be that people simply don’t know any better.
Dash cam also. If you are caught flipping the bird or swearing on cam you can get in trouble. Which is why i use obscure swear words when i almost get run over.
I’ve never heard bad things from Taiwanese people about checking the mirror, but I have been told numerous times not to look back over my shoulder. Because in the time it takes to shoulder check, something unexpected may happen in front of you (car suddenly stopping, kid running into the road, boulder falling from the mountains, etc.).
Your are right. When you look over your shoulder a lot can happen. I’ve learned to look really quick here in Taiwan. Whiplash quick. I’ve come close a couple times to rear ending someone, but not yet. I spend a lot of time riding bicycle in the city. That teaches you a lot about how people drive. I’ve become quite proficient at weaving through cars making illegal turns in front of me. Always get a chuckle when the cabbie honks at the legal biker while he’s making some totally illegal stupid maneuver. And a mirror on a bicycle is a must have here. I keep one eye on the road and the other eye on what’s coming from behind. A 3rd or 4th eye would be advantageous.
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