A scooter passed between two cars, clipped my mirror, fell over and scratched my back panel on a busy road with lots of cameras. It took the Taoyuan cops three months to finally assign blame to the scooter driver so that insurance could do their thing. Another big truck ran into my back bumper on the highway about a week earlier and it’s still waiting for the final report.
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Got hit by a scooter’s mirror while waiting for a bus today…the rider clearly saw me but still chose to ride close to the curb (he stopped at one spot a few meters in front of me, but decided to park in the spot a few meter behind me) despite having open space on the road and bumped into my arm at slow speed. I was flabbergasted at the pure idiocy of such a thing even happening. I kicked up a little fuss about it since he parked right next to me anyways and he just dipped his head down and just said sorry and wouldn’t say anything except sorry as he tried to walk away to go into the store.
I mean…I guess I could’ve called the police but what will they do? I half expect them to blame me again or tell me to come to some agreement with the guy by ourselves. Plus I had places to be…a bit frustrating.
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Someone should invent something the size of a tennis ball, that when thrown into the path of an oncoming car, inflates to a human-sized mannequin within moments. The facial expression on the mannequin would be one of abject terror. When subsequently struck by a car, it would then explosively, but harmlessly, deflate into a pile of sticky red goo.
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I do often regret not having a filled, liter-sized metal waterbottle in my hand sometimes. Then again, me swinging it into the expensive car that nearly flattened me will more than likely end in me paying a lot of money and the perpetrator becoming an even bigger asshole trying even harder to compensate for his toothpick sized penis.
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We could also have a voting system to democratize the opinion of someone’s driving ability. All pedestrians and other drivers are given a point-and-click remote with an upvote/downvote option.
When we see something dangerous, stupid, illegal, bad parking, etc. we point the remote at the offending vehicle and press the button.
If the driver gets lots of minus points a day, their insurance premiums go up or they may even have to re-qualify. If they get lots of plus points a day then their insurance premiums go down.
Some R&D and thought has to go into this, because the system is not foolproof and can be manipulated; e.g. someone asking his friends to upvote him. The system also needs to get rid of inherent biases; e.g. that drivers who are often on the road (taxis) are liable to get more downvotes than drivers who just do a 15 minute commute to work every day.
Also if a car is speeding away, it may be difficult to identify the car. In the past when I was almost knocked down at a pedestrian crossing, even though I had my phone in my hand, I didn’t think to take a picture of the car, and probably wouldn’t have had time to log into my phone, select the camera app and then take a picture before the car was gone even if I wanted to. And how many of us approach a pedestrian crossing with the camera app opened and ready to click?
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What insurance premiums? When I was nearly flattened in my scooter by a moron trying to turn right in a “straight only” lane, the dip shit didn’t even have insurance.
When I’m having a particularly bad day, I record my entire walk somewhere.
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Not do dunk on your idea, but it’s overly complicated and easily abusable.
Also, it does not attack the root of the problem: drivers won’t drive safer even if they are afraid of being reported, because most don’t know how to (don’t understand what does it mean to drive safe) or physically can’t (the roads are not designed to drive safely easily).
The whole traffic problem is systemic, as some years ago it was already being written:
To improve traffic, it is important to conduct a thorough review, taking into account three major factors: people, vehicles and the roads. The nation should also carry out better traffic management, using the “three E’s”: Engineering, Education and Enforcement.
Still haven’t seen any politician in any city in Taiwan take a strong stance regarding the first 2 (correct me if I’m wrong, happy to learn and support). In my opinion Enforcement is just overwhelmed right now.
I specially think driving-licenses’ traffic education is really deathly joke here.
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Wow, looking at Taiwan’s stats of 12.1 deaths/100k inhabitants makes grim reading. I wonder what proportion is vehicle - pedestrian and vehicle - vehicle.
Having visited Italy before, I thought the drivers there were crazy, but it seems they are mild (5.2 deaths/100k inhabitants) in comparison. A tour guide there told me crossing pedestrian crossings there required you to look directly at the driver while taking a leap of faith. Kind of like “If you hit me, your face will be the last one I see.”
I agree. I was saying it light heartedly.
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It greatly depends where in Italy. Southern drivers are notoriously crazier than Northern ones. Although I don’t know if this translates to death rates. It should, because infrastructure is also better in the north.
At the very least buses need swing out stop sign on the doors. It’s insane how many people squeeze between the open bus door and the curb and come seriously close to wiping out an elderly man/woman or child…and don’t even blink an eye.
One time I saw a scooter driver lightly hit a pedestrian getting off at a bus stop (red light just in front of the bus) and the guy getting off the bus was okay and the driver just fell over and on the ground…the guy helped her up and she just got on her scooter and continued to squeeze through and ran the red light…didn’t say anything to the guy and I was a bit flabbergasted that no one did or said anything despite dozens of witnesses…bystander to a certain degree effect I suppose
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These days I often have my phone and timestamped video app at the ready when crossing a lot of intersections…too many close calls. Sometimes just having the phone out seems to make people wait, while other times it just pisses off the driver and they still try to push through and run me over while giving me a nasty glare.
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Nobody saw anything wrong with what she did, including the guy. If there is the odd observer who though maybe there was a problem, they could either be totally numb to the issue, or know that doing something about it is like bailing out the ocean
I was new to Taiwan at the time…and I was told by local friends soon after arriving it’s just safer you don’t get involved because they might try to push the blame onto me, especially since I didn’t know any Chinese at the time. It was certainly an eye opening event for me.
At the same time, pedestrians need to just have some common sense. My wife frequents two grocery stores which have small parking lots in which is almost essential to back into the parking space if you want a chance to get out of the parking lot…really tight squeeze. I always let the wife get out and then I start maneuvering to get into a spot. Always…always…always a steady stream of bikes, motorcyles and people walk behind my car as I am backing into a space. Yesterday I was backing up when a motorcycle zoomed in behind me. I stopped. Then starting backing up again when a bike leisurely rides up behind me. I stop. I try again…backing up when a guy walked behind me car. I stop. I start moving again and just luckily caught a glimpse of the next person as he passed behind my car. I stop again. All four of these people could have easily passed by me from the front of my car. But no. Each wanted to pass behind a moving vehicle in reverse.
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Asking for traffic related common sense in Taiwan is no common sense.
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This kind of passive aggressive scooter rider is all too common.
Honestly, Taiwan’s bovine obsession with scooters is easily the single worst thing about Taiwan.
Take the scooters away it would be the best.
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Yeah…less scooters, less cars, more public transportation, better facilities/engineering. We want a lot to improve…for safety and accessibility but unfortunately my hope kind of stopped when I see the roads get repaved every year or two, but somehow crossing lights at big intersections with a lots of traffic and confusing lights (confusing for pedestrians to know when to cross sometimes) are too expensive, or newly installed lights that are poorly installed and are facing a completely different direction or broken…less than a month after installation.,
At least for me, it feels like Taichung hasn’t really improved too much over the years, except the addition of the MRT, how useful it is depends on how close you live to it AND does it even go anywhere you want to go. As well as some more frequent buses on certain lines (every 10 minutes at peak hours and 15 minutes at off peak), but overall I think for most people here it’s not much of a difference and don’t even think about it, just go for a scooter. The only thing I really ever use the MRT for is occasionally coming back into town from the Highspeed Rail…but there is a bus that does it much cheaper and much closer to my home.
Some more crossings are added the concrete safety island to try and protect pedestrians from crappy drivers who have no idea how to make a proper turn which is nice too. This stuff is all nice, but when I leave my home I dread the trek to the bus stop, although I don’t really mind it that much once I’m actually out and about.
Curious about other’s experiences in Taichung specifically actually? How do people feel about it’s improvements so far?
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