I wonder if anybody could help me. I recently had the misfortune of being fined for drinking and driving in Taipei. It was 4am in the morning, and I thought I was sober enough. Turned out I was a little over the limit. But even a little over gets you a steep fine. They took away my bike and fined me 15,000 TWD. I have to pay the fine to get the bike back. However, I haven’t paid yet and am thinking of not paying because I plan to leave the country in a few months, and my old motorbike is worth a lot less than the fine. I recognize that drinking and driving is stupid, and that I probably deserve the fine, but I have to be very pragmatic about my costs right now. So I’d really appreciate if anyone could help me with any of the following questions:
Will I be stopped when I leave the country? If the authorities do stop me, what will they do?
If I have no problems leaving, is it possible I will experience problems when I return to Taiwan?
Will this kind of fine be doubled or tripled if I don’t pay it?
Is there a website where I can check my fines? I have a link but it seems to be very old and not work properly.
Thanks for reading this. And, here’s to driving sober next time
I wonder if anybody could help me. I recently had the misfortune of being fined for drinking and driving in Taipei. It was 4am in the morning, and I thought I was sober enough. Turned out I was a little over the limit. But even a little over gets you a steep fine. They took away my bike and fined me 15,000 TWD. I have to pay the fine to get the bike back. However, I haven’t paid yet and am thinking of not paying because I plan to leave the country in a few months, and my old motorbike is worth a lot less than the fine. I recognize that drinking and driving is stupid, and that I probably deserve the fine, but I have to be very pragmatic about my costs right now. So I’d really appreciate if anyone could help me with any of the following questions:
Will I be stopped when I leave the country? If the authorities do stop me, what will they do?
If I have no problems leaving, is it possible I will experience problems when I return to Taiwan?
Will this kind of fine be doubled or tripled if I don’t pay it?
Is there a website where I can check my fines? I have a link but it seems to be very old and not work properly.
Thanks for reading this. And, here’s to driving sober next time [/quote]
You should.
You deserve it.
2 again. It should be.
No idea.
If you are a litle short on money maybe you should not spend them drinking beer?
And you should have thought about it before you did it.
What is the limit anyway? I have hear one botle, but not how big or with what.
OP - I think you need to place this in the legal forum.
My gut feeling is that they would never let anyone out who owed them cash. Collecting money seems to be one of the few things the Taiwanese authorities are efficient with. I would also guess that you will have trouble when reentering the country.
1- This question can not be answered unless you tell us what your BAC was. (Blood Alcohol Concentration).
2- This question can not be answered unless you tell us what your BAC was.
3- The penalties for late payments are very steep. You can request more time, and it may or may not be granted to you. To do this, you have to go to the Traffic Adjudication Office. (Roosevelt rd. Sec. 4, no. 92, on the 7th and 8th floors.)
4- Traffic Ticket Hotline: 2367-5280 But again, depending on you BAC, this may not be where you need to call.
Tell us what your BAC was and I’ll answer your questions. I don’t want to waste time writing about different scenarios.
[quote]Boy, it must really be great never fuck up or make mistakes[/quote]It must be… Hardly conceivable. So I’ll stick with “it must be great if you can get away with it.” True enough, I think we all did things we’re lucky we never got busted for.
[quote=“tomthorne”]My gut feeling is that they would never let anyone out who owed them cash.[/quote]They do all the time. I read somewhere that outstanding traffic fines issued to foreigners who left Taiwan amount to millions of NT dollars. Offences against public safety, on the other hand, might make it a bit difficult to leave Taiwan.
Really? Wow! For a country whose major export is laptops you’d think they’d have linked together the computer systems. Can’t be that difficult, can it? Then again, this is Taiwan .
I know for one that when you have open fines, renewing your driver license, vehicle license is impossible before paying the fine … leaving the country I’m not so sure
[quote=“Belgian Pie”]I know for one that when you have open fines, renewing your driver license, vehicle license is impossible before paying the fine…[/quote]Only if the fine is filed with your vehicle license number. A fine issued for a speed camera, for example, will be filed with the vehicle license number. In such a scenario, you can’t transfer ownership or renew the registrations unless you pay the fines first, but you’ll still be able to renew your drivers license. If you get pulled over and you are asked for a drivers licence, the police officer will often file the fine with your drivers license number, in which case you can sell the vehicle or renew registrations without paying the fine but you can’t renew your drivers license. They really know how to complicate things.
If you are a litle short on money maybe you should not spend them drinking beer?
And you should have thought about it before you did it.
What is the limit anyway? I have hear one botle, but not how big or with what.[/quote]
Gee, that’s really helpful to the OP! Good job! [/quote]
Boy, it must really be great never fuck up or make mistakes, I sure am glad we can have someone around to look up to, you know, an inspiration, like. [/quote]
Yeah, it’s not like anyone got killed or anything…
Lot of people sure get touchy over drink driving, huh? With so many reports of Forumosans dead or worse from ‘mistakes’ in recent years we should not be encouraging this sort of thing. Pay the damn fine.
[quote=“RobinTaiwan”]1- This question can not be answered unless you tell us what your BAC was. (Blood Alcohol Concentration).
2- This question can not be answered unless you tell us what your BAC was.
3- The penalties for late payments are very steep. You can request more time, and it may or may not be granted to you. To do this, you have to go to the Traffic Adjudication Office. (Roosevelt Rd. Sec. 4, no. 92, on the 7th and 8th floors.)
4- Traffic Ticket Hotline: 2367-5280 But again, depending on you BAC, this may not be where you need to call.
Tell us what your BAC was and I’ll answer your questions. I don’t want to waste time writing about different scenarios.
Hi Robin, as far as I can recall, my test result was 0.37 mg/litre. I’m not sure how to convert this to a BAC percentage. But if you look at the following link, you’ll see more or less how the two measurements equate. You’ll also see that I got the lowest possible fine (15,000). tbaf.org.tw/en/communication … on_penalty. Thanks for offering to give advice.
0.37 is more than three times what you needed to be charged with public endangerment, and about ten times the legal limit.
You may very well be able to leave Taiwan. The district attorney has to send a request to the department of immigration to flag you at the airport. You didn’t cause an accident and no one got hurt so your chances of being able to leave are pretty good, in my opinion. If you were to be flagged, customs would simply radio the cargo guys, retrieve your luggage and ask you to go home and try again after the charges are resolved.
Upon coming back to Taiwan, your chances of being flagged would be much greater because your case WILL eventually be reported to the immigration if you left and failed your legal obligations.
[quote=“RobinTaiwan”]0.37 is more than three times what you needed to be charged with public endangerment, and about ten times the legal limit.
You may very well be able to leave Taiwan. The district attorney has to send a request to the department of immigration to flag you at the airport. You didn’t cause an accident and no one got hurt so your chances of being able to leave are pretty good, in my opinion. If you were to be flagged, customs would simply radio the cargo guys, retrieve your luggage and ask you to go home and try again after the charges are resolved.
Upon coming back to Taiwan, your chances of being flagged would be much greater because your case WILL eventually be reported to the immigration if you left and failed your legal obligations.[/quote]
I think you misread the OP’s post. It’s 0.37mg/liter, not 0.37% BAC. At 0.37% there’s no chance he would have been operating any kind of vehicle since he would be plastered to the floor, and quite likely he would have died instead of still being able to post on Forumosa.
His BAC was likely to have been something similar to 0.074%.
[/quote]
True enough, I think we all did things we’re lucky we never got busted for.
.