I really love many aspects of Taiwan, but the general behavior of people on the roads is incredibly frustrating. If I were to strap a camera to my helmet is there somewhere I can send the footage so that people can be retrospectively fined/punished for breaking basic road laws? I’m talking about things like running red light, too many people on a scooter, scooters belching out smoke or just going the wrong way down one way streets. I feel like the whole thing would be cathartic for me, and if I can get even a couple of people to think a little bit more about their driving it’s a good thing right?
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My understanding is that yes it is possible to do so. I don’t know if you have to register first or what. Apparently there are private citizens who make a good living driving the streets looking for violators and filming their violations. A friend of mine got a ticket mailed to him with a photo of his violation that he said must have come up from a private individual.
I don’t know the details of where to find more info though.
I don’t think people would appreciate an alien taking a vigilante attitude towards the local normal.
If it’s cathartic for you, why don’t you apply to join the police force?
I’ve also had tickets mailed to me with photos of my violations. It’s called a speed camera. There is also a sophisticated technology called a red-light camera, but I’ve managed to evade those.
Yeah, don’t do that. It’s pretty douchey.
Just think if you would like it if someone snapped your picture when you made a mistake (whether intentional or not) and you got a bill.
If what I was doing was potentially dangerous for other people then I think I’d probably accept it with a grumble. I don’t know anyone who thinks the roads here are in any way well policed and safe places to be, and yet the attitude to me considering what I can do about it seems to be pretty negative. Personally speaking I think people driving/riding mobile weapons irresponsibility is far more douchey then shopping them to the police for breaking laws put in place to save lives. I guess I’m just a massive douche.
No, you’re not a massive douche. I can understand where you’re coming from. I’d love to see Taiwanese people drive in a safe and sane manner.
But over the years of living here for that to happen I may as well hope other more important things will happen too, like world peace or not having
to live under the thumb of world bankers, things like that.
The thing is that Taiwanese people will not willfully change their bad driving habits. Even if being forced to with tickets. I even believe if a gun
was pointed to their heads to not make the stupid choices they make on the road that they would get a bullet in the head every damn time. Of
course that would lead to less of these stupid people on the road, but for some reason it would be bad PR. It’s too bad that they aren’t asking for
people to come forward to be the one to pull the trigger, because I think I’d be happy to take that job. I’ve certainly have had enough of these idiots
on the road. But sadly, they aren’t offering that job. Sigh…
I wish I could give you more information to you so you can send in all the pictures and video you have to the police to make those idiots pay for
THEIR douchebaggery. Remember this, you are not the douchebag in this instance, you are just recording douchebaggery and just want to
forward it to someone who will remind the douchebag to stop being a damn fucking douchebag.
Maybe you can call the information for foreigners hotline - 0800-024-111. Not sure if they will be much help or not, but they might be able to
point you in the right direction.
I’m not saying that you are a douche, just that recording this type of thing would be douchey 
Nobody likes a rat.
In addition if I ever received a ticket like this I would file an administrative appeal since it was not a police officer that witnessed it and video evidence can be edited to say whatever I want it too. If it aint a cop giving the ticket, it should not be accepted IMO
OK, I can understand the idea of not liking a rat. Like if I got a ticket for turning right on a red from a photo or video, I’d be pissed.
The thing about that ticket that it wouldn’t show is that I would be looking to make sure it was completely safe for me to do so, and
then I turned right and merged into traffic safely without risking the lives of anyone.
What the poster is talking about, which I guess is, the complete lack of awareness of the world around them and doing completely
dangerous things that could and can hurt other people that many drivers of Taiwan seem to have.
Back to your original statement of not having a policeman witness you, what does that have to do with anything? I’d file an appeal
based on the fact that I wasn’t given a ticket by a police officer in the first place. How many times have you got a ticket in the mail
from a police camera? Have you fought it before? Did you win? If you have, I’d love to learn about it. Even if it came down to
getting a ticket from a police officer, remember it’s just a contract to agree to pay money for something. Most people seem to
forget that.
I’ve seen some fairly jerry-rigged contraptions taped to helmets and dashboards. And received a few tickets generated from these fokkers.
I wonder how much they get paid?
[quote=“TheGingerMan”]I’ve seen some fairly jerry-rigged contraptions taped to helmets and dashboards. And received a few tickets generated from these fokkers.
I wonder how much they get paid?[/quote]
These are used by Taiwanese to protect themselves in case of an accident. The incident is fully recorded so liability can be deemed appropriately. If you guys seriously think amateurs off the street can submit home videos in order to have bona fide tickets issued… well, crack is bad for you. They can only be used when related to an actual incident on the road. In addition, authorities pull the footage off their vid cams which are all over the city to corroborate the stories provided.
Also, if you actually get into cars of regular Taiwanese folks, it’s generally not malicious or bad intentioned. The truth is it is pure lack of drivers education, which has resulted in terrible habits (never corrected or taught properly) as they copy those around them. Their lane awareness is brutal. It’s a cycle of ever worsening driving. But they generally have very little awareness (if any) of how terrible a driver they are.
On the flip side, riding a motorcycle in Taipei is safer than riding a bike in many large urban centers in North America. Why? Because people here have the strong habit to shoulder check and remain fully aware of bikes while North Americans don’t. Does that mean North Americans are terrible drivers? It boils down to drivers education emphasis in this case.
I do get pissed off here, especially if trying to navigate a car (prefer bikes completely) but am not fooling myself into thinking Taiwan is full of malignant drivers who purposely swash swords all the time in an attempt to earn face; while vigilantes roam the streets armed with cameras to make videos in all the spare time these poor overworked souls have in order to ‘do good’. Or, editing videos to screw over their daughters lovers, sworn enemies, guy who looked at them the wrong way etc etc.
It starts with taking the kids 4 on scooter, not wearing a helmet and ignoring a red light … they see it and think, cool … you don’t need to stop and don’t have to wear a helmet and wow, I can take 5 on a scooter, awesome.
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I see this as an extension of the rat-out-everyone attitude that breeds mistrust and suspicion. It’s not cohesive, especially considering the things you describe aren’t all that dangerous. It’s just that you’re unaccustomed to it. I’ve been dinged twice by people with cameras in their cars for safely breaking the traffic laws. The Taiwanese are doing just fine. It’s us Westerners that need to improve ourselves.
Yeah, screw those rats!! Woodward and Bernstein, Edmund Morel, Joseph Wilson! Everyone was doing fine until they had to go whining and moaning. Illegal this, war crimes that, jeez don’t these people have better things to do than annoy the rest of us?
Sent from my fingers using the internet.
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There wouldn’t be any need for ‘rats’ if police would just do their jobs.
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It’s all about obey your superior and teamwork … when the chief takes a tea brake everyone should take a tea brake … screw traffic control.
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People running red lights in Taiwan is probably the most common and dangerous behavior I see on a daily basis.
There is a crosswalk in front of my son’s elementary school. They just recently installed a stop light and now have volunteer flaggers during the morning and after school. Even with those new measures parents still attempt to drive their cars through the crosswalk when children are crossing. This would be a serious infraction in the US, and a real money maker police department.
Like much of the world, when people get in cars in Taiwan they stop worrying about the safety of pedestrians, not sure why they even paint crosswalks in this country.
I don’t think you can do it for everything but you can for some things. Red lights for example will get no action (when recorded by the public) whereas smoky vehicles will, and you’ll get NT$300 per violation you record. If you do a search through the archives of the online newspapers you’ll find articles about it from a few years ago when they started accepting photos / footage.
That’s it, right there. I have close friends who are former cops, or who are friends with current cops in Taiwan. Police force corruption and a very lackadaisical attitude toward enforcement is rife in many precincts in Taiwan. Lack of enforcement is 75% of the problem.
Thanks for the input here, I’ve always considered the bad driving here to be a result of two things, really poor education, and then a lack of enforcement of the laws in place. There is absolutely nothing I can do to impact the first factor, but maybe something like this could help with the second. On the topic of police enforcement, I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve seen police officers standing around doing nothing while people blatantly break the law right in front of them. This in itself is frustrating, and I think it just perpetrates the general feeling of many Taiwanese that these things aren’t really a problem.
By the by, sorry if people think I’m moaning about things that can I never do anything about, but this country is my home. I know most of this behavior is not malicious, but that doesn’t make it right, and if anyone can think of any other constructive ways, as a foreigner, to give things a nudge in the right direction I’m all ears.
I want to do the same. There are things that piss me off, like to overtake one or two or even three vehicles in a row when there’s a double line. I really hate it.