First Scoot Accident

Life Cars & Motorcycles
1

Just got into a minor accident. Was doing around 40, then a girl in front of me just stops in the middle of the road in front of me, so I had to veer left into oncoming traffic (luckily, there wasn’t any, but the other lane) to avoid from smacking right into her. Our scooters sideswiped each other, busting her left mirror and scratching the paint off the left side under her seat (and the right side of where a passenger would put their feet on my scooter…I got a bigger 2 person scooter, she had like a little vespa looking thingy).

Her scooter went down, she stood right up but was grabbing her back. Called her boyfriend, he was friendly (she wasn’t) she was rambling off at me and I was, nicely, responding in Chinese (amazing how good your language skills somehow kick in at a moment like that), pointed out she stopped suddenly, did NOT turn on her blinker (a fact she did not for a second deny) as she was evidently going to turn left (which she did…but into me just a bit) . She stopped about a meter before the yellow criss cross crossing thing in the road.

The bf wanted me to give them some money on the spot, I said I had none (I didn’t) and that I am in NO way accepting the fault. Swapped phone numbers, we’re both going to go to the dr and then get back with each other.

I have a big scratch on the inside of my thigh (havent looked yet, am at 711 getting my bearings, a bit shook up atm, got lost even afterwards…which I never, ever, ever do) and my back is hurting, so guess a good idea to see a doc tomorrow.

Will see how this turns out.

Any advice? I read through like half the sticky.

2

Should have called cops for chalk measurements etc., and gone to the hospital.

Then you’d have a good map of the location of the accident and what exactly happened.

That being said, stopping means brake lights, which means you should have seen them and braked, regardless of her not using a turn signal. Had you left a large enough distance between you and her, which at 40km/hr shouldn’t be very far at all, you would have had plenty of time to stop.

Don’t know why so many people think the rules of the road don’t apply for scooters. Lesson learned: don’t tailgate.

3

I’ve been hit before by an SUV on my scooter (drunk driver side-swiped me travelling across both lanes), and I know that it’s totally not a fun experience to get in an accident.

Anyway, in your case it’s very hard to know exactly what happened. I wasn’t trying to be rude, but just because you’re posting about it on the forums doesn’t mean you weren’t at least partially at fault, and just from the description you’ve given it sounds like that is a fairly likely possibility. Did she make a stupid move? Yes, from your description, absolutely, and probably reckless driving, too. That doesn’t absolve you from all responsibility, and without having the police come to draw the map of the scene and stuff it will be very hard to determine who is at fault now.

If she sped past you, pulled in front of you and slammed on her brakes so that you plowed into her with not even a split second to react to her manoeuvre, then it could be that she’s 100% at fault. That doesn’t sound like the description you gave, though.

At the very least, you don’t seem to be too terribly hurt which is really the best you can hope for in a scooter accident. From the given information, it doesn’t seem very likely that either party would be able to convince the court that they weren’t at fault, and since you didn’t file a police report right away, I doubt you’ll have any luck getting any money from her for medical, scooter damage, or anything at all. You could try to sue her, if you really wanted to…

4

neither of us were hurt badly, both walked away with a few bumps.

I was going slow enough, and far behind enough to not simply plow into her, she actually turned INTO me as I was swerving left to miss her, it was not a rear end collision. Thought I made that clear, but I was still pretty shaken when I wrote the first post.

  1. She passed me
  2. Slams on breaks in front of me
  3. I swerve to her left
  4. She turns into me (she said she was stopping to see if it was safe to turn…she was turning left, guess she did not actually look…big surprise here).
  5. Side swipe, Her scoot goes down, mine keeps going…so I turn around and go back.

I don’t think there is going to be a huge deal, I sure hope not.

5

you should in no way have given her your number. You should have cursed the crap out of her, called her a stupid faceless loser, and fucked right off.

scooters are expendable, and skin grows back. OTOH, angry little boyfriends who want to make themselves seem big men tend to have posses who will hunt you down.

6

You really should speak to someone who knows about Taiwanese traffic laws. However, AFAIK in most countries it is pretty rare for the driver of the vehicle that was in front to be found liable when a collision occurs.

Perhaps ignoring her or her boyfriend’s phone calls might be the best solution for you.

7

Sounds like the first scooter accident I had, except I managed to avoid hitting the scooter in front and put mine down to the expense of my left ankle, knee and hip.

A painful lesson, but a good one.

10 years accident free. Touch wood.

8

First let me say that its a good thing you were both relatively unharmed.

Two ,legally hillary is quite right. IF you hit someone , even if they stopped suddenly or swerved in front of you (with both of you going the same direction) you are 100pct in the wrong.

You are supposed to leave enough distance so that if someone stops suddenly or swerved into you, you can stop. IN practice thats almost impossible with the heavy traffic, but the law is not on your side in this case.

You shouldve offered her 1000nt on the spot or 2000 and that absolves you from any further claim.

Exchanging fone numbers so she can come after you later and NOT having a police report on the spot is just about the worst thing you could have done.

Motto: dont do the above, ride safely with all six senses and slow speed and expect the unexpected 100000pct of the time, and carry a few thousand nt at all times or have ATM availability to solve such minor incidents before they became major.

Now if shes a bitch as you claim she is, she can come after you with all sorts of claims and want a LOT to make her go away. You may be buying her a new scooter essentially.

p.s. lets hope she does not do that, and if she does, dig out that youtube vid of the gal riding her scoot and going right into the front of the car to her side and being run over. Sure the car is at fault for probably going too fast to stop but shes in much worse shape. She learned a lesson hopefully. And hopefully you will expect the unexpected more now.

Me? Id not ride a scoot or two wheeler at all , at any time in Taiwan.

9

[quote=“tommy525”]First let me say that its a good thing you were both relatively unharmed.

Two ,legally Hillary is quite right. IF you hit someone , even if they stopped suddenly or swerved in front of you (with both of you going the same direction) you are 100pct in the wrong.

You are supposed to leave enough distance so that if someone stops suddenly or swerved into you, you can stop. IN practice thats almost impossible with the heavy traffic, but the law is not on your side in this case.

You shouldve offered her 1000nt on the spot or 2000 and that absolves you from any further claim.

Exchanging phone numbers so she can come after you later and NOT having a police report on the spot is just about the worst thing you could have done.

Motto: dont do the above, ride safely with all six senses and slow speed and expect the unexpected 100000pct of the time, and carry a few thousand nt at all times or have ATM availability to solve such minor incidents before they became major.

Now if shes a bitch as you claim she is, she can come after you with all sorts of claims and want a LOT to make her go away. You may be buying her a new scooter essentially.

p.s. lets hope she does not do that, and if she does, dig out that youtube vid of the gal riding her scoot and going right into the front of the car to her side and being run over. Sure the car is at fault for probably going too fast to stop but shes in much worse shape. She learned a lesson hopefully. And hopefully you will expect the unexpected more now.

Me? Id not ride a scoot or two wheeler at all , at any time in Taiwan.[/quote]

I did not want to fork out cash as that seemed as though that was admitting fault and could open me up for more down the road in case she wanted to pursue something, since I do not see it as my fault.

I have no idea if she is a mean person, could have just been shaken up. She refused to give me her number, so the boyfriend gave me his.

We will see, I wasn’t going fast, and she started turning from pretty much a complete stop, so all damage is minor and cosmetic. Took pictures of my leg, which is a bit nasty. See about my back tomorrow.

10

Confuzious, if the police or the boyfriend call, just keep the story simple that she turned into you. As this is what you said.

Giving the entire story will likely confuse eveveryone and the police may simply put all the blame on you.

11

[quote=“hillaryclose”]If you run into the back of someone, it’s 100% your fault!
[/quote]

Not true even in Taiwan.

For example when the car is illegally double parked the car driver bears responsibility for collision.
Law was amended as a result of fatal accident in Taipei (not sure what is the status)

12

In the special olympics of scootering, everyone deserves a gold.

Nobody gives a shit whether she used her indicator or not. Pointless dragging out something like this when it could have been settled quickly and amicably.

OP should be thankful he wasn’t driving a car or a truck, as the consequences would have been a whole lot more serious.

13

I had a similar accident on my scooter a bit over a year ago. The girl on the scooter over took me, opened a space of about 100 meters and then slowed down rapidly. She was turning left with no signal of course but, also she pulled slowly to the right before cutting left. I was overtaking her and saw the juke to the right so over took her on the left and we collided. More damage to my scooter than hers but nothing over $1500 NT. I offered to let it go and each pay for our own damage. She wanted to go to court I told her that was fine my me. Cops showed up listened to the stories and told her if we went to court I’d win. She then decided it would be best to settle, I told her I was curious about the Taiwanese court system and my leg was pretty hurt (it looked worse than it was). After having her and her boyfriend (and my wife) plead with me to let it go I agreed to accept 500nt.

14

[quote=“pb”][quote=“hillaryclose”]If you run into the back of someone, it’s 100% your fault!
[/quote]

Not true even in Taiwan.

For example when the car is illegally double parked the car driver bears responsibility for collision.
Law was amended as a result of fatal accident in Taipei (not sure what is the status)[/quote]

Hillary’s simplistic way of looking at traffic laws doesn’t work in bizarro world Taiwan.

For example,the amahs that don’t look before pulling into flowing traffic from a sidestreet. Hit her and try to explain to police that she just cut in. They will tell you that you are responsible for anything in front of you, regardless if she looks or not. So what do I do? Well, when in Rome…

15

I’ll chip in here too, I’ve been driving down the middle lane of the road once when some idiot pulled out from a side street to come straight across into lane 3.

I jammed on the breaks and swerved to only just miss him, but if there had been a collision, no way was that my fault.

I’ve also had taxis just switch lanes without looking, I have then had to decide whether to blindly swerve into the next lane, or go into the side of them.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

16

Hope you feel better. Try to get a recording…there has to be cameras filming everywhere. Get it quickly too, they may wipe it out after 24 hours or something like that.

17
  1. They probably will assume you don’t know nothing about traffic rules and will want you to admit responsibility straight away. Refuse.
  2. If you’re in Taipei and there was no police check and no cameras were you crashed you are in, nobody can save you. In my last crash they didn’t even consider the two witnesses saying my trajectory was cut straight in front of me by a car, because of NO picture.
  3. As it is a minor incident your insurance shall cover all without discussing, if there is no police inquiry just do that, saves a lot of troubles, then try to sell off the bike before having another crash. The plate is not yours anymore.
  4. believe it or not police tend to be friendly to foreigners in this kind of circumstances, I had two minor incidents during this year both times the cop tried to make sure my Taiwanese counterpart couldn’t rip me off, even when like in 2, they couldn’t help.