Anyone know if it’s true about the police not being able to use traffic CCTV if noone is injured? Seems pretty ridiculous. Smells like the usual BS they do to try and convince people to not make reports.
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Despite Keelung entering a so-called period of “strict enforcement” it has been seen on social media that police are simply just watching cars and scooters almost run down pedestrians right in front of them.
In Kaoshiung many scooter riders do not yield for pedestrians at a crosswalk. One scooter driver completely turns his head around to stare at the cammer for stopping for pedestrians.
Lady on a scooter doesn’t slow down for a pedestrian on the crosswalk and comes close to hitting him, the pedestrian slaps her helmet. News mentions that if the girl fell down then the pedestrian could be sentenced up to 5 years, meanwhile scooter rider could only be fined up to max 1.800NT for not yielding to pedestrian. Probably would still be a lot less for hitting him, police will just come up with any excuse like saying he looks ok, don’t need to report, bla bla bla. Seems fair.
A pedestrian in Taoyuan comes pretty close to getting hit.
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A lesson to be learned:
https://twitter.com/StrongTowns/status/1634294213675302914?t=bY7w8i3BSSWkH_Wc5XPusw&s=19
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In Taiwan it would not reduce deaths to zero. No matter how narrow and twisted lanes could be, scooters would still do 70+km/h.
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And removing parking spaces would just encourage more dangerous illegal parking
Taiwan MOTC/Mayors: “Can we do this with green paint?”
Might be easier to just honk back as a pedestrian at this point.
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I constantly see people on girl-bikes and real motorcycles screaming along at full-throttle. Although I wish no ill-will on anyone, I would rather they smashed into a lamppost, saving a pedestrian from harm.
Wrong side of the road going too fast. Poor scooter rider. Hopefully that guy gets a long sentence.
Another incident in Taichung, and again A-piller blind spot is the excuse…
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Police is friggin’ useless in Taiwan, they could be making billions in fines every year instead of sipping tea. It’s just the work ethics, only do what’s told, don’t show or take initiative, safest way of keeping your job. Fining one of the rich accidentally could ruin your career.
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Police in Chiayi in 2 weeks of increased traffic enforcement have recorded over 1000 major violations.
Starting March 15th Tainan police will be entering a period of stricter traffic enforcement for a month.
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Looking at the video it seems like maybe tye driver crossed the center line before fully entering the intersection too…
Saw a scooter accident today. Not really news, since I see at least one every week… but this poor dude looked dead on the street. I didn’t stick around so I don’t know the outcome, but the traffic here is such third world garbage. It’s a shame they love their scooter culture so much.
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ETTV have compiled various clips of recent incidents. First one shows how thinned skinned some people are. Guy gets honked at for driving on wrong side of road to illegally overtake and stops in the middle of the road because he got honked at. He ends up with $21,000 fine.
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It isn’t scooters that are the only problem per se, it is the traffic culture, including infrastructure and cars.
There are a lot of scooters, fast and unprotected and close to larger vehicles, which means a lot of the accidents we see involve scooters. And some are even cause by scooters
But if we took all of those scooter drivers and gave them cars, bicycles, and walking shoes, I wonder how much the accident rates overall would really go down. Yes, we’d see fewer scooter fatalities with fewer scooters, but we’ll probably see more car on car crashes and dead pedestrians as well
For example, this guy:
If a scooter had been approaching that intersection faster than a crawl they would have been flattened. Someone in a car would have just been impacted.
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Look at the end of the clip. They only get fined 1,600 -3,200 NTD for hitting pedestrians on crosswalks unless the victim sues them.
The student who got hit didn’t even stop, probably because she was afraid.
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There needs to be investment in public transportation and walkability. Not just only reduction of vehicles.
All these scooters drive up and park on the sidewalk and often push pedestrians out of the way. This is the park right next to where the mom and son were run over by a bus. This entire area is listed as a sidewalk by the MoI. People are lazy. If they can’t park right in front of where they are going then it’s troublesome.
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I would be afraid of dealing with the police too… Too many bad experiences between me and my friends for traffic related incidents. Just blame the victim and say they can’t do anything. Even had one walk away from me while I was talking to him at the police station. The numbers the police report for injuries and accidents is fudged…and it’s still pretty bad.
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I tend to just walk in front of cars and scooters when I cross at the lights. If you give direct eye contact with scooter drivers they seem to think aiming for you will make you get out of the way. If you don’t look at them they think they have to watch out for you. As for cars there’s some real dicks out there. No matter whether it’s a rusting out piece of shit that’s held together with duct tape or a brand new Porsche the general attitude is “my car is more important than your shoes!” So if you aren’t prepared to fight, or actually get hit by the car, then adopting my method of walking in front is not a good idea.
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Had a close call a while back with a 60 yr old woman at the wheel. She didn’t even slow down when my family and I were crossing in front of her. I’m not sure if she was on drugs or was half blind or what. Some really dangerous, selfish and strange people out there.
It all comes down the sense of impunity from hiding behind the tinted windows and being able to drive away quickly from the scene.
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