People have no concept of safety first and giving pedestrians priority. The unwritten law of ‘the biggest thing is the winner’ is what is followed. Which makes giving way to pedestrians who are crossing the road, or even just observing them in the first place- a dangerous game.
So, let’s just make it easier and change those rules to something with zero room for error.
I don’t really see how the police would enforce either, they do not follow the rules themselves.
It is not only a problem of education and rules enforment, which are a BIG problem. It is also a street design problem.
Both of these intersections (mother and kid, and killed lady) are huge. There is plenty of space for, for example, a damn roundabout. With a roundabout vehicle traffic is better because most of the time vehicles do not need to stop and wait for traffic lights, they only need to reduce speed (this alone makes roundabouts much safer than 4-corners) and yield for traffic already in the roundabout, if any. Crosswalks can be placed a few meters away from the crossing, so cars enter the crosswalk once they have already finished turning (this makes the A-pillar excuse less believable). Finally, a buttom for pedestrian green light makes much safer to cross because when it is green for pedestrians, it is always red for all vehicles.
Yes, at the beginning we will have some accidents in the roundabout because Taiwanese drivers are helpless. But, eventually, they will learn and/or natural selection will do its job.
Well in some places they don’t even paint the crosswalk back on after repaving the road for a while…I remember one time near my place the crosswalk didn’t get repaved until about a month or two after the road was done being repaved.
One day, at an intersection that I drive through about four times a week, I turned left on my scooter but was pulled over by a police officer waiting on the road (actually, three of us were pulled over). There was a new 2-point left turn sign and painted box installed, but I hadn’t even noticed it. It was definitely new because so many people were getting pulled over.
From that day on I started observing the scooter drivers at that intersection. For the first couple of weeks I saw many more people getting pulled over.
However, I was surprised that the cops were posted there every day (or at least the 4 days a week I was there), and this continued for a full month. For the second month I noticed a cop about 50% of the time. The number of people not using the 2-point turn dropped dramatically during that first month.
It’s been about 8 months since this experience. I still use that intersection 4 times a week, and I still observe. I’ve seen only about two scooters turn directly left there in the past few months.
This tells me that consistent enforcement can work to retrain people’s driving habits.
With this breaking news they might not even have to chase down cars anymore, they can just start going after pedestrians, much easier and less trouble.
Does this work? Seems you’d need a powerful spray bottle like kitchen cleaning bottles or something. Could it damage someone’s vision and get you in trouble?
Was crossing a very short zebra walk in an alley a couple of days ago when two scooters proceeded to speed straight through it almost hitting me. I was already angry from something that happened at work earlier and a little buzzed from some self-medicating. My reflex action was screaming “I’M IN THE FUCKING CROSSWALK”. Some homeless dude comes charging and screaming at me. Luckily was steps away from the MRT entrance. The streets are a jungle here.
Another reminder to be safe out there and don’t trust any of the stuff people put out, like the cheap metal ramps. Elderly friend went out for a walk and had to go from the qilou/covered area onto the road so he took the little ramp that covers the entire area in front of the Chinese medicine clinic there and he instantly slid right off and according to him was a few cm. from bashing his head into something…fortunately he’s okay, but god it’s scary how something simple like that can happen in an instance and given his age, falls like that can be a lot more dangerous… Can’t even walk half a block before having to step off into the road in a lot of places.
I tried to make them stop at this zebra crossing. Eye contact (although I couldn’t see a single eye) and pointing to the funny white markings on the road. Not a single moth****cker yielded.
Showing decision and advance works great until your pushing a little kid on a stroller. Then you rely on these hijos de la gran p**a.
I don’t know where the looking in the eye thing works, because it really hasn’t done anything for me in Taichung.
I crossed here earlier today and it’s awful spot to cross at, 3 roads leading into it and always cars illegally parked around the whole area making it difficult for everyone to see a damn thing. When there’s finally some time for me to cross I start and a scooter kind of comes out and slowly keeps driving and turning right into me and he kind of freaked out a little bit when he realized I wasn’t going to stop for him, I’m in the middle of the road, no way I’m stopping because some other idiot will hit me. He was looking right at me the whole damn time.
Later in the day when crossing a car stopped to let me and another pedestrian cross and within a half a second of him stopping a bunch of cars behind him started honking at him…then proceed to drive around him and almost hit some pedestrians. Zero patience is common.