It’s Sunday afternoon and I had a great day. Lots of riding. Went to the go-kart place in Junan (or however you spell it) and had a good time there. Practiced doing some stunting on my bike. That was fun.
Anyway as I’m riding home I notice a guy coming up from behind aggresive and fast. I go onto the shoulder and use another car as a shield until he goes by. I then follow him for a bit. And see that he’s going all over the road. He’s going on the shoulder and kicking rocks at me…and crossing over the double yellow and going into the oncoming lane. So I stay a safe distance back and continue to follow…I’m pretty sure he’s drunk at this point. And I’m hoping to watch him crash…I’m also hoping no one else we be involved. I’m also thinking that IF he does crash I’ll beat him bloody for driving on the same road as me. Anyway…back to the story.
So sure enough for no real reason he loses control of the car and does a 180 at about 80km/hr. Just missing another car. I stop beside the drunk’s car which is now stalled and he’s trying to start it. And start to punch his window to get his attention. He’s bigger than me (who isn’t? hehe), but he’s drunk and I’m wearing full body armour and kevlar gloves. He doesn’t even notice me pounding on his window…doesn’t even look at me once. I can see his face is very red…his eyes are bloodshot…and half open.
He gets the car started and drives off into oncoming traffic. I notice the other car that I thought he missed is also stopped and the guy is getting out and examining his car. So I go to him instead of following the drunk again. I see that the drunk did in fact hit him…and I give the guy the drunk’s license plate number which I had memorized about 5 minutes earlier. He phoned the police at my suggestion.
The police showed up and did nothing of course. The policeman laughed at the victim when he said the hit and run guy was drunk. Then the “victim” pointed at me and said I saw that he was drunk…to which I confirmed. So now the police man has eye witnesses of a Drunken driver performing a Hit and Run. Will he go the drunk’s house? Will he give the drunk a fine? No and no. He’ll just make a report like a good little secretary…and the info can be used by the victim’s insurance company if he decides to pursue it…which he probably won’t since it was just a few scratches.
Which just goes to show you boys and girls…if you hit someone with a car in Taiwan…make sure you drive away before the police get there…or you might get in trouble.
In this pic you can see the tire marks from the car that lost control:
And here you can see the polite but utterly useless cop coming to our rescue:
Good on you bro for being a good citizen and possibly showing the locals that we do have a sense of community and that people who do wrong things should be held accountable for their crimes!..Too bad that the police sucks the bag islandwide and that very few cops have the balls to do anything related to what their job should be!..In Canada, they could be gas station attendants at best!
I don’t think there’s anything to report. The cop did exactly what he’s supposed to do…nothing. I’m sure he followed standard procedure. If I tell the “better bobbies bureau” word for word what happend. They’ll probably give him a raise for doing exactly what a Taiwanese cop should do.
The notes that he took…he just wrote on a piece of scrap paper. But I’m sure it was police issued scrap paper. I even specifically asked him if anyone would go to the drunks house and fine him for Hit and Run. The cop replied “We can’t do that” to which I said “Oh, yes you can…you use your walkie talkie thing…phone your police station read them his plate number…they’ll tell you where he lives…you go there give him a ticket.”. He then gave me the old “Things are different here. This isn’t America” line.
I remember reading about the fine for Hit and Run offences…seems like a moot point…because once you’ve run…even if they have your plate number and eye witnesses…nothing happens. :s
This really steams me. rant begin as an American citizen I pay taxes and vote for people who will argue that Taiwan should have military protection from China. Ha! If a person with power can’t care for a fellow citizen, then why should I give two tiddle winks about making sure Taiwan is protected from China?? rant over
Hat’s off to you Mord, for giving a flying fuck when you knew what the result would be in the first place. It’s gonna take time but maybe you are planting seeds that will grow.
[quote] Wow, crazy. That’s why I like about cops here. I hadn’t done this myself, but I’ve talked to more than one person that said they had. They’ll be cursing down some highway and spot a swerving car/obvious drunk driver. They’d call 911 and not 5 minutes later there will be 4-5 cop cars flying from behind them to the drunk driver.
I remember one story in particular where it was a semi a guy called in. He was going up highway 75 when he noticed a semi was swerving and just not going straight at all. 75 is divided by a physical barrier down south, so the chances of cross is min, but it was dangerous for other traffic. He called 911, informed them of the semi and he said he couldn’t forget the next sight. 4 cop cars, all blaring their sirens, each in it’s own lane came flying up from behind him. They all passed him, resumed their individual lane setup and literally surrounded the semi! They forced the semi over just as he drove by just astonished. That’s surely a sight I wish I’d seen. It’s times like that you really appreciate the law enforcement here. [/quote]
Can you imagine if police here spent a week riding around with American police? Police here…aren’t police…we need to think of some kind of new name for them. Plasmatron? Any suggestions?
In the 5 or so police related experiences I have had here (witness to car accident through to burglary… all and I mean all have been professional and followed up several times with updates and in 3 of the cases to let me know the results of the case. Better than I have ever got back home in Australia. Now if only my Oz taxes didnt go towards funding war.
In the 5 or so police related experiences I have had here (witness to car accident through to burglary… all and I mean all have been professional and followed up several times with updates and in 3 of the cases to let me know the results of the case. Better than I have ever got back home in Australia. Now if only my Oz taxes didnt go towards funding war.[/quote]
There are at least a dozen posts scattered around here of people being involved in hit and runs…going to the police station and the cops do nothing. There are even example of people having the plate numbers and the police still do nothing.
Maybe you live in Taipei…I hear the police there are a bit better than the rest of the island. Either way…your examples are still in the minority.
This is where I want the wtf emoticon… sure, the cops back home are always on power trips… but at least they usually do their job… i’ve seen accidents happen right in front of cops here and they just ignore it and continue on their merry way… there was also that big thing on the news here about cops slacking off, sleeping in their cars and everything else…
can you explain why a cop needs to call backup just to give a fine for an illegal turn?
This is where I want the wtf emoticon… sure, the cops back home are always on power trips… but at least they usually do their job… I’ve seen accidents happen right in front of cops here and they just ignore it and continue on their merry way… there was also that big thing on the news here about cops slacking off, sleeping in their cars and everything else…
can you explain why a cop needs to call backup just to give a fine for an illegal turn?[/quote]
Take a look at the police in Taiwan thread that’s in the Vroom Vroom section. There are about a hundred examples of Taiwan’s “police” being anything but “police”. And maybe only 2 or 3 positive stories: forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.php?t=25233
I’ve never been to “Oz” so I don’t know what the police are like there. But when you saw the police in Taiwan are better than the ones in Oz…that doesn’t make me think anything positive about the police here…only negatives about the police in Oz. But I do know that worse police do exist…like in Mexico and Columbia. You saying the police in Australia are comparible to the ones in Columbia? You’d have to be if you are saying they are much worse than the Taiwanese “police”.
i didnt say oz police were “much worse” than taiwan police OR worse than in columbia… you are manipulating and misinterpreting my words in the most most ridiculous manner.
this is all i am saying on the matter. i dont want to get into an online argument over you questioning my experiences
Driving home tonight on a mountain road in Da Keng I notice two cars stopped in the middle of the road. I get out to find out what is going on and the guy ahead of me says there is a car ‘stuck’ and he has already called the police. Knowing that the average Taiwanese driver has the common sense of a dog biscuit I go to check out the ‘stuck car’ and see a guy slumped over the steering wheel. Uh oh… Mr. Useless didn’t want to do anything so I unlocked the doors through the passenger window, found a pulse (whew) and managed to get the handbrake on before he rolled off the cliff. I couldn’t just leave him there so took the keys out and waited for the cavalry.
Mr. Useless kindly drives off before Taiwan’s Finest arrive to do their sterling work. I explain the situation and for some reason he asks me to wind the guy’s windows down (?) because he couldn’t figure out the controls (?). I ask him why and he planned to ‘let him rest for a bit then he’ll be okay’. No no no. If I hadn’t turned up he would be at the bottom of the mountain right now. We have two possible scenarios here - 1) the guy is blind drunk or 2) has a serious medical problem. Either way he needs to be taken back to the police station, examined by a doctor and have his license revoked. I changed his position and checked he wasn’t going to choke on his tongue before chewing out the policeman for being so recklessly lazy. He radioed for assistance and a plate check then promised me it would be dealt with properly so I left with a twinge of guilt knowing that this driver would be back on the road within the hour, scot-free.
[quote=“llary”]Driving home tonight on a mountain road in Da Keng I notice two cars stopped in the middle of the road. I get out to find out what is going on and the guy ahead of me says there is a car ‘stuck’ and he has already called the police. Knowing that the average Taiwanese driver has the common sense of a dog biscuit I go to check out the ‘stuck car’ and see a guy slumped over the steering wheel. Uh oh… Mr. Useless didn’t want to do anything so I unlocked the doors through the passenger window, found a pulse (whew) and managed to get the handbrake on before he rolled off the cliff. I couldn’t just leave him there so took the keys out and waited for the cavalry.
Mr. Useless kindly drives off before Taiwan’s Finest arrive to do their sterling work. I explain the situation and for some reason he asks me to wind the guy’s windows down (?) because he couldn’t figure out the controls (?). I ask him why and he planned to ‘let him rest for a bit then he’ll be okay’. No no no. If I hadn’t turned up he would be at the bottom of the mountain right now. We have two possible scenarios here - 1) the guy is blind drunk or 2) has a serious medical problem. Either way he needs to be taken back to the police station, examined by a doctor and have his license revoked. I changed his position and checked he wasn’t going to choke on his tongue before chewing out the policeman for being so recklessly lazy. He radioed for assistance and a plate check then promised me it would be dealt with properly so I left with a twinge of guilt knowing that this driver would be back on the road within the hour, scot-free.
there was an accident across the road from my house last night… drunk guy on a scooter ran into the back of a gangsters car (right outside the gangster’s base of operations too)
it took 4 police cars (7 men) and an ambulance (for an alcohol level check) to apprehend the drunk guy, even though he tried to run away (or should i say stagger away) in front of the cops from the first car…
and one cop took the little measuring wheel thing (the one they used to check how far a vehicle has slid etc.)… and measured the width of the median strip… ??? wtf is with that??
still… they guy is lucky the cops showed up (they were just passing) as he’d already copped a few in the head from one gangster… though his buddies did pull him off the drunk dude…
x08’s story reminds me of something. A couple of months ago I was going to work. And on a small road I go down the car in front of me is just stopped. I notice a car in front of it facing towards me is just stopped, too. I think they are trying to get around each other, but then realize they are both empty. So I work my way around them on my scooter. And I notice the farther car is at a weird angle…partially off the road. Then past the cars I see three largish men…and one man with no shirt stumbling and blood on his face and chest. I also notice one of the large men pulling out handcuffs from the back of his jeans. I then re-checked the cars to see if either looked like an undercover police car…and they didn’t. I continued on to work…but it was a pretty odd sight to see.
