That’s right - and one of the basic problems of Taiwan’s traffic. The funny thing is: Even cars will turn left from the right lane. And this whole two-stage turning thing has gone way too far: In Jiayi, even on a number of roads with single lanes in each direction and no “real” bike lane, they painted the squares for that two-stage turn at the intersections…
You are right, they do the restrictions to keep most bikes out. But once allowed at all, I wonder how they want to keep (and enforce) those restrictions…
When you have a left turn phase the cars from each direction pass pretty close to each other. Most scooters drive on the outside of the lanes and would therefore turn on the outside of the cars. I’m guessing if you had a bunch of scooters from both directions doing that at once they would all plow into each other every single time.
I’d imagine the point of the high CC limit is just to keep down the number of people doing it.[/quote]I’d say that’s probably it.
Many cities in Taiwan have big traffic-light controlled intersections with large spaces of relatively empty tarmac (asphalt). Some of them are crossroads; some five-way intersections. Ideal places for roundabouts (traffic circles), you might think. In fact I’ve been told by some old-timers that they did indeed used to be roundabouts, but frequent accidents led the government to turn them into regular traffic light-controlled junctions; a less efficient but arguably safer option.
I think the same thing is going on with the two-stage left turn thing. I think there could well be more accidents if it were abolished. Of course, if a comprehensive rider/driver training and testing programme were set up, and laws more strategically enforced, these problems could be solved. But in the meantime I guess it’s easier to paint white boxes for scooters at junctions.
…Just to see about 90 percent of the bikes where I live still make the direct left turn and not bother about the two stage turn at all. Oh and then see the motorcycle box completely filled up with traffic coming from behind the box, as they are too damn selfish to stay behind their line. I sometimes wish I had a plough (American plow).
Hmmm, I’m still very tempted to get myself one of these big bikes and I just can’t wait till these restrictions end. Reading this thread is almost a frustrating tease to me at times, and I keep checking in just to see if I can go and purchase a great big crotch rocket yet, in the hopes of cruising around the island in style with the wind in my chest hair and sun blistering my nose. Arrr the times to come…It gives me something to look forward to.
[quote=“joesax”]Many cities in Taiwan have big traffic-light controlled intersections with large spaces of relatively empty tarmac (asphalt). Some of them are crossroads; some five-way intersections. Ideal places for roundabouts (traffic circles), you might think. In fact I’ve been told by some old-timers that they did indeed used to be roundabouts, but frequent accidents led the government to turn them into regular traffic light-controlled junctions; a less efficient but arguably safer option.[/quote]I don’t think there were any more accidents on the traffic circles than after they turned them into intersections. The problem was total bedlam. As you know, a traffic circle only functions when there is self-discipline and drivers give way to traffic on the left. You can imagine for yourself what it was like. The only thing that will work in Taiwan is traffic lights and a camera at every light. What would get the traffic moving is proper phasing of the lights, the promotion of ‘green wave’ routes and other techniques rather than the random programming used at present.
A set of synchronized traffic lights on a given Road.
Akka you are at Chung Shan N. rd sec 1 waiting at red light, it turns green, you reach the second intersection the light also turns green…and so on….so you don’t “stop and go”.
Yeah a smarter traffic management would be really appropriate (at least in Taipei!)
I am guessing that ‘green wave’ refers to syncronizing the light on certain routes so very large chunks of traffic can move quickly thru it.
For example, lets say a main thoroughfare has 10 intersections each controlled by lights, but getting from one end of that main thoroughfare to the other is what 90% of traffic does.
If those 10 lights are syncronized in to allow a group of vehicles to get from one end to the other without stopping, then the total volume is higher in a shorter time frame (= less congestion). The cars waiting at the side streets will have to wait for x amount of seconds whether the lights are syncronized or not.
The ‘wave’ refers to the fact that not all the throroughfare lights need to be on at the same time, just syncronized in the direction of traffic flow so if you ‘catch the wave’ at the beginning, you can ‘ride it’ to the end.
Basically, with a little bit of study and research, the same system can be set up to put thru much more traffic, and far more efficiently…with minimal cost. Everyone wins.
[quote=“joesax”]
I think the same thing is going on with the two-stage left turn thing. I think there could well be more accidents if it were abolished. [/quote]
Yes, just look at the way cars do their direct left turns?
They will cut your lane, even if you are coming in the opposite direction, and they’ll do it very slowly to make sure you can hit them.
They don’t give a damn about the fact that a scooter is coming on the opposite lane (the funny part is: do a direct left with your scooter while a car is coming in the opposite direction and the car driver will get mad, honk at you and sometime even accelerate…(sick))
Imagine if all scooters do this when they left turn? they left turn without caring what’s coming and do it very slow? Imagine the slaughter…
With 550cc up you turn much faster but I don’t think it’s the reason, they just want to try to limit the number of 2 wheels doing direct left turns with a silly law…I guess…
You guys are pretty much on the money wrt the green wave. One important thing you missed though. The lights are timed so that they will be green at each intersection you meet on the route, if you drive the speed limit. Going faster will just mean you arrive at the next light before it has turned green for you. Smooth the traffic and remove the incentive to speed in one fell swoop. I don’t know where this idea originated, but it has been used in the UK with success for many years now.
a few years ago my early morning(5am to 7am) commute entailed driving down zhongxiao east road(starting from zhongshan north to guang fu).
back then, if you went the posted speed limit, you would hit 8-10 red lights after crossing the intersection. stretching this section of the commute to 20 minutes of stop and go traffic on totally empty streets.
if you perhaps wanted to ‘catch the green wave,’ you would drive exactly double the posted speed limit(50 or 60kph). at 100-120kph you could blast all the way down zhongxiao from Taipei Main Station to Sun Yatsen Memorial in 5-7 minutes. so fast and so stupid(and careless) all rolled in one. will never try this again.
purposely setting traffic lights to prevent a green wave:
recently when driving northbound on zhongshan north road past midnight every traffic light past the BMW dealer up to the bus circle on section 7 is set to turn red no matter what speed you go. I think its to keep people from racing up the back route to Yangmingshan when locals are trying to sleep.
About 4 CNY’s ago during the traditional traffic meltdown fiasco the head of the traffic department was interviewed on TV and he clearly stated that they were aware of the “green wave” traffic light timing systems, but that Taiwan was “special” and the system used here was therefore also “special” in that it is designed to keep traffic as segmented as possible to prevent massive gridlock at the myriad of bottlenecks caused by poor (read: non existent) city planning… basically what they go for is light timing that makes any given vehicle stop at as many intersections as possible… that way little chunks of traffic move nail scrapingly slowly through the maze, in an extremely inefficient manner that makes the lazy SOBs at the 交通部’s job that much easier, and who gives a damn about road users, wasted productivity etc…
as for the bikes on the freeway part, the parts of that article that stood out as really pushing the boundaries of TW govt. ignorance and incompetence was the fact that they evaluated the situation and successfully deduced that heavy bikes are in fact not the same as scooters… this clearly having taxed their fruit fly like intellects past breaking point, they were unable to conceive of the possibility of the existence of a “3rd class of vehicle” and they surmised that if they aren’t scooters, they must be cars and adjourned for a quick parliamentary fist fight session and an early lunch… so in the future heavy bikes are actually cars and will be treated as such… it will become illegal to ride a heavy bike in the scooter lane, ever… they must wait in line with cars at red lights… it will be illegal to park a heavy bike in any parking space other than a full size car space, parking in designated and more than adequately sized motorcycle bays or anywhere else for that matter will be prohibited… fines and penalties will be charges at the same rate as cars, not scooters…
so the govt. is adamant that heavy bikes will count as cars in every way, except those that make life harder for the would be heavy bike rider ie. Import duties will continue to be exorbitant and way in excess of cars, annual licensing and registration fees will continue to be way more expensive than cars and emissions requirements will still be light years stricter than any emissions requirement for cars… plus to top it all off heavy bikes won’t actually be afforded the same rights and privileges as cars, access to almost 70% of expressways and freeways will apparently be restricted and/or left up to local/city govt. to decide…
it seems to me that all they’ve really done is add a new world of inconvenience, limitations and penalties for would be heavy bikes users in the long standing tradition of creating a veneer of seeming compliance with WTO stipulations and pressure from international lobby groups while maintaining the arsebackwards banana republic status quo that is their want…
Just the way the scooter lobbies want it. They’ve been a protected industry here for decades and will not stand for anyone threatening their iron rice bowl, i.e. a guaranteed mass market for small, inefficient crappy design force-fed to a population that has no other choice but to buy their crap. I’m actually surprised they allowed the MRT systems to be built at all, but I’m sure it wasn’t due to lack of effort on their part.
+1 to that… as we all know, the politicians here are too stuck in their old ways. They don’t want to see change. Why would they? They’re making a mint and getting to have fist-fights while they’re at it. Geez. I’d love to get into politics here just so I can throw cups of water at people and get paid for it. But I’m not old enough yet, don’t have a receding hairline or little, piggy eyes. So I guess I’ll just hafta keep dreaming.
But then again - I don’t think that I’d ever get pulled over for riding in the scooter lane on a big bike, much like I never get pulled over for riding in the car lane on a scooter. Parking fines? Only an issue parking at major places like department stores or the train station. Besides - since when have we wanted to park our ‘big bikes’ in normal parking places anyway? It’s a rarity that someone takes their CBR to Carrefour or somewhere that the bike is out of sight.
OK so there it is!
Several express ways open to bikes over 550cc (beside the really useful expressways such as Xin Shen - from Jian Tan to Taipei city, thanks to our very smart law makers).
Simply need to change the yellow plate to a red one.
Well actually, red ONES.
1 plate in front and 1 in the back (an officer told me: this law is impossible to enforce without a front plate as police cannot see if the bike is over 550cc from the front - again I guess he meant ‘thanks to our extremely smart law makers’).
The front plate seems to be a sticker to be placed onto the windshield (HUHUH actually my bike is a naked one, no windshield)
Anyone knows about all that 2 plates issue? very curious…
[quote=“plasmatron”]About 4 CNY’s ago during the traditional traffic meltdown fiasco the head of the traffic department was interviewed on TV and he clearly stated that they were aware of the “green wave” traffic light timing systems, but that Taiwan was “special” and the system used here was therefore also “special” in that it is designed to keep traffic as segmented as possible to prevent massive gridlock at the myriad of bottlenecks caused by poor (read: non existent) city planning… basically what they go for is light timing that makes any given vehicle stop at as many intersections as possible… that way little chunks of traffic move nail scrapingly slowly through the maze, in an extremely inefficient manner that makes the lazy SOBs at the 交通部’s job that much easier, and who gives a damn about road users, wasted productivity etc…
as for the bikes on the freeway part, the parts of that article that stood out as really pushing the boundaries of TW govt. ignorance and incompetence was the fact that they evaluated the situation and successfully deduced that heavy bikes are in fact not the same as scooters… this clearly having taxed their fruit fly like intellects past breaking point, they were unable to conceive of the possibility of the existence of a “3rd class of vehicle” and they surmised that if they aren’t scooters, they must be cars and adjourned for a quick parliamentary fist fight session and an early lunch… so in the future heavy bikes are actually cars and will be treated as such… it will become illegal to ride a heavy bike in the scooter lane, ever… they must wait in line with cars at red lights… it will be illegal to park a heavy bike in any parking space other than a full size car space, parking in designated and more than adequately sized motorcycle bays or anywhere else for that matter will be prohibited… fines and penalties will be charges at the same rate as cars, not scooters…
so the govt. is adamant that heavy bikes will count as cars in every way, except those that make life harder for the would be heavy bike rider ie. Import duties will continue to be exorbitant and way in excess of cars, annual licensing and registration fees will continue to be way more expensive than cars and emissions requirements will still be light years stricter than any emissions requirement for cars… plus to top it all off heavy bikes won’t actually be afforded the same rights and privileges as cars, access to almost 70% of expressways and freeways will apparently be restricted and/or left up to local/city govt. to decide…
it seems to me that all they’ve really done is add a new world of inconvenience, limitations and penalties for would be heavy bikes users in the long standing tradition of creating a veneer of seeming compliance with WTO stipulations and pressure from international lobby groups while maintaining the arsebackwards banana republic status quo that is their want… [/quote]
Haha you got the Taiwan gubmint figured out on this one. They actually HATE big bikes but have to learn to live with it . But they dont want to make life too easy or too easily understandable for big bike owners.
The document I have from the gubmint suggests that fuel and plate tax will be reduced to car levels. I’ll believe it when I see it.
I’m pretty okay with this - I think sometimes bikers don’t realise just how much shit their little machines put out (and I’m even including modern, Japanese sportsbikes here).
This was something I was very annoyed about when I went deep into the bowels of this legislation. ‘Hey, stop protesting, look, we’ve opened up the expressways after all!’ **
As long as you only want to ride the 72 which is currently legal anyway.
There is a suggestion floating around on some gubmint papers that bikers could be allowed on more expressways after passing an extra x hours of Bike Bike Expressway A-Huang Special Golden Binlang Biker School. I’m all for improving the piss poor training but not piecemeal like this :loco:
I don’t know if it’s the same level as car taxes now, but taxes were reduced around June of this year - received my refund more than a month ago. If you haven’t received your refund by now, you may want to give your DMV/tax office a call.
The document I have from the gubmint suggests that fuel and plate tax will be reduced to car levels. I’ll believe it when I see it.
[/quote]
I don’t know if it’s the same level as car taxes now, but taxes were reduced around June of this year - received my refund more than a month ago. If you haven’t received your refund by now, you may want to give your DMV/tax office a call.[/quote]
My bike is still in the dealer’s name. Should I be asking them about money I should be expecting back? Anyone else know about a tax drop?
