Many Taiwanese don’t have passports and many expats and locals who drive or ride here don’t have licences. Theft happens everywhere, just go read the technology thread about many cameras stolen from an exhibition last week. And did I say Bisarck doesn’t have a passport? Maybe he doesn’t need one. Fact is nobody is going to ban scooters in this country. They don’t ban them in yours either.
Have you actually got a point to anything you are writing here?
Without a passport you cannot leave the country or do almost anything as a foreigner, the equivalent here being Taiwanese ID card and hukou registration. Try doing anything in Taiwan without these IDs. You won’t get far. Are you saying it’s terrible trying to force people to do things? Then don’t get a hukou, don’t get an ID yourself, don’t pay your taxes, don’t do military service if you are Taiwanese.
You have a terrible habit like many posters here of misreading peoples posts and reading your own view so you can respond appropriately with a A vs B approach, seriously annoying!
I live in Taiwan, deal with Taiwan issues, not other countries.
Many Taiwanese don’t have passports and many expats and locals who drive or ride here don’t have licences. Theft happens everywhere, just go read the technology thread about many cameras stolen from an exhibition last week. And did I say Bisarck doesn’t have a passport? Maybe he doesn’t need one. Fact is nobody is going to ban scooters in this country. They don’t ban them in yours either.[/quote]
Give us all a break. HHII’s point is a complete frickin obvious one. We are regulated all the time in a million different ways especially with respect to safety and health.
Btw, my city? My city is Taipei. I don’t live anywhere else.
If you are talking about where I come from then no, they don’t need to ban scooters because everyone thinks they’re gay.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]Nobody could run a car in Taipei City without other financial back-up on a salary of 30k/mth. Parking fees would eat up at least 5k/mth alone between working and home parking, so assuming they have a take home pay of 25k/mth thereabouts after paying income tax, health insurance and lao bao, that leaves them with about 20k/mth to play with. Let’s take away 3k/mth more for car running costs, maintenance and annual tax. 17k per month? Even buying the car in the first place seems impossible.
Does not compute Gman![/quote]
You are the first one to stipulate Taipei. As far as I’ve read on this thread this idea of adding punative costs to make scooters unattractive economically (and those calling for an outright ban) have talked about doing so in the whole country. But forget that and lets focus on Taipei. So you say 17k per month is all that’s left? So what does that need to cover? Food and Shelter? So, in the case of a single person a large portion of them are still living at the parents house. So housing costs are taken care of and to some degree possibly food. Now if you want to talk about a married couple now the money left over closer to 47 k /month. Suddenly there’s a little bit of room. Maybe tight and maybe not everyone but, not impossible.
For those living in less dense areas or businesses with their own parking garage there is no cost. I know for example that China Air at the city airport doesn’t charge their employees to parking in the building’s garage.
Also, as I’ve already stated, areas of Taipei that are so dense that parking is at a premium (5k/month) are already well served by transit so really a restrictive policy on scooters wouldn’t really have much impact on those average workers as the vast majority of them use transit. So scooter restrictions would do little to change the driving habits of people working in that area.
But, let’s dismiss this. Even then you are now into the moral issue of foisting the major share of the sacrifice on the backs of the less economically advantaged.
I still haven’t seen anyone hear even try to take a stab at figuring out what the actual effect of any kind of scooter policy would have the other all environment here. I haven’t seen anyone ask why is it that scooter use is so much higher here than other areas (I’ve actually asked you directly about comparisions to Japan). Of course this is outside one inference that Taiwanese were lazy (yes the word lazy was actually used).
Does anybody seriously think any politician here is going to regulate to ban scooters? I guess not. Yes all countries have regulations. They help stop anarchy and help societies live within certain boundaries. Now it would be nice if we could develop the technology where we could all use electric powered scooters. But then someone will complain about how expensive they are to build and that they still have batteries that need recharging and there is no place to do that. Simply calling to ban scooters without having a viable cheap replacement form of transportation for the masses is not going to happen. I live in Taipei as well.
Yeah, mate. But who does she live with? What are her other expenses? I’m guessing with her parents, and free to spend on what she wants as everything else is taken care of. I could be wrong, but I would be surprised if I am. [/quote]
You are exactly right, now are you going to tell me that she is atypical here?
Those kinds of things are faced by married couples so now you are dealing with double incomes. Look, using superficial logic here. People are saying that the average wage in Taiwan won’t support the ownership of a car. Yet the damn things are everywhere in this country. So, are all of these cars being driven by the rich or well off?
Also if 30k is the average in the Country you can sure as hell bet that the average wages in Taipei city are higher. Also does that average wage include bonuses or is it just salary?
Any political party that tries to make riding a scooter too costly for “John Smith” and “Tracy Bloggs” would lose the election. Thus highlighting one of the great failings of democracy “Majority rules!”; regadless or not if the majority of the majority is comprised of imbeciles. 
Yeah but its enough as it is. There’s a lot of nonsense regulation for ‘security reason’ or to ‘protect you’ already.
Like when they imposed curfews on Taichung pubs/restaurants after a fire in one of them… how wonderful, the government decides don’t eat after 22:00, all must follow.
Banning scooters and forcing people to walk would be the same for me (and others I assume). Only talking about Taipei City here.
And again, the MRT is expensive and not even close to my place.
I can easily drive 150 km with 100 TWD with my scooter (not counting maintenance, oil and insurance).
Probably a bit less with two people. So the MRT and buses aren’t valid replacements to me.
Only electric scooters. That said. I was almost driven over by a guy with a mini-electric scooter on the sidewalk today 
Which is why examining the reasons why scooters are so heavily used here and then looking at ways alternatives can be made more attractive to the current scooter drivers has a far better chance of achieving the goal of better air quality than decreeing punative measures against them.
Well, Taiwanese often work as family units thus the average combined family wage or the wage of husband and wife combined could hack it.
Additonally there is A LOT of undeclared income in this province of China. Also in my subejctive opinion there are one hell of a lot more scooters on the road than cars in Taipei. Go out and count in 4 different locations at 4 different times of day and I’d bet there are around three to four times as many scooters as cars.
Not counting car only highway overpasses duh
Not necessarily true. We are talking about Taipei mainly where a great many in the lower income bracket cannot vote anyways because of lack of household registration. I imagine improving air quality and safety would go down well with the people who actually vote.
Let’s see who actually won last time. Not the DPP candidate who was appealing to the scooter crowd promising cheaper parking, more parking, and scooter lanes.
Strange how he lost with those obviously appealing policies. Strange how the incumbent has not bothered to make scooter usage more convenient to please his constituents.
Fact is that the city gov has been working to make scooter usage more difficult over the years. And they need not fear any voter backlash. This is a blue city. It always was and always will be. The KMT led city government has the power to bring in change. They just don’t have the vision or guts to do more than tinker.
I think you put too much faith in the government (no matter which color it has).
The KMT led city government has the power to bring in change. They just don’t have the vision or guts to do more than tinker.[/quote]
Why?
Well, Taiwanese often work as family units thus the average combined family wage or the wage of husband and wife combined could hack it.
Additonally there is A LOT of undeclared income in this province of China. Also in my subejctive opinion there are one hell of a lot more scooters on the road than cars in Taipei. Go out and count in 4 different locations at 4 different times of day and I’d bet there are around three to four times as many scooters as cars.
Not counting car only highway overpasses duh[/quote]
Nobody was making the point that there are less scooters than cars. This is topic of affordibily came about as the possibility in an increase in car ownership due to banning scooters was raised. It was then pointed out that the average wage in Taiwan is only 30k for month so cars must be unaffordable to the average Taiwanese. So this issue about the number of cars isn’t about their numbers relative to the number of scooters. It is that there are a hell of alot of cars around Taiwan considering that their ownership is supposed to be financially out of reach to the average Taiwanese.
Well, Taiwanese often work as family units thus the average combined family wage or the wage of husband and wife combined could hack it.
Additonally there is A LOT of undeclared income in this province of China. Also in my subejctive opinion there are one hell of a lot more scooters on the road than cars in Taipei. Go out and count in 4 different locations at 4 different times of day and I’d bet there are around three to four times as many scooters as cars.
Not counting car only highway overpasses duh[/quote]
Nobody was making the point that there are less scooters than cars. This is topic of affordibily came about as the possibility in an increase in car ownership due to banning scooters was raised. It was then pointed out that the average wage in Taiwan is only 30k for month so cars must be unaffordable to the average Taiwanese. So this issue about the number of cars isn’t about their numbers relative to the number of scooters. It is that there are a hell of alot of cars around Taiwan considering that their ownership is supposed to be financially out of reach to the average Taiwanese.[/quote]
So if there are more scooters than cars it may mean because they are more affordable. Some posters are saying there are a lot of cars around considering the average person is allegedly not able to afford them well considering the ratio of scooters to cars it might well be true that the average joe bloggs cannot afford a car. That is my point. THerefore my ratio post was a valid opinion to have and to make. If there is a far higher ratio of scooters to cars one would have to then consider why is this the case? Affordibilty may well be one of those reasons.
Cars are costly not only due to buying, insurance, maintanence etc but also parking costs which can be massively prohibitive in Taipei.
Well, Taiwanese often work as family units thus the average combined family wage or the wage of husband and wife combined could hack it.
Additonally there is A LOT of undeclared income in this province of China. Also in my subejctive opinion there are one hell of a lot more scooters on the road than cars in Taipei. Go out and count in 4 different locations at 4 different times of day and I’d bet there are around three to four times as many scooters as cars.
Not counting car only highway overpasses duh[/quote]
Nobody was making the point that there are less scooters than cars. This is topic of affordibily came about as the possibility in an increase in car ownership due to banning scooters was raised. It was then pointed out that the average wage in Taiwan is only 30k for month so cars must be unaffordable to the average Taiwanese. So this issue about the number of cars isn’t about their numbers relative to the number of scooters. It is that there are a hell of alot of cars around Taiwan considering that their ownership is supposed to be financially out of reach to the average Taiwanese.[/quote]
So if there are more scooters than cars it may mean because they are more affordable. You say there are a lot of cars around considering the average person is apparently not able to afford them well considering the ratio of scooters to cars it might well be true that the average joe bloggs cannot afford a car. That is my point.[/quote]
Well for sure it means that they are cheaper than cars (that should be obvious). So is it that the person driving the scooter can’t afford a car or just chooses to go with the cheaper option (frugal)? I don’t think anyone can say that if punative measures are put in place against scooters there won’t be a significant increase in the number of automobiles as a result.
The KMT led city government has the power to bring in change. They just don’t have the vision or guts to do more than tinker.[/quote]
Why?[/quote]
Do you have politicians where you come from? 
The real changes happened when DPP Chen was Mayor of Taipei. At least he had the guts to do something about the woeful traffic and pollution conditions and had the police actively enforcing road rules. That is why Taipei is so much better today than it was back in the 1990’s
Well, Taiwanese often work as family units thus the average combined family wage or the wage of husband and wife combined could hack it.
Additonally there is A LOT of undeclared income in this province of China. Also in my subejctive opinion there are one hell of a lot more scooters on the road than cars in Taipei. Go out and count in 4 different locations at 4 different times of day and I’d bet there are around three to four times as many scooters as cars.
Not counting car only highway overpasses duh[/quote]
Nobody was making the point that there are less scooters than cars. This is topic of affordibily came about as the possibility in an increase in car ownership due to banning scooters was raised. It was then pointed out that the average wage in Taiwan is only 30k for month so cars must be unaffordable to the average Taiwanese. So this issue about the number of cars isn’t about their numbers relative to the number of scooters. It is that there are a hell of alot of cars around Taiwan considering that their ownership is supposed to be financially out of reach to the average Taiwanese.[/quote]
So if there are more scooters than cars it may mean because they are more affordable. You say there are a lot of cars around considering the average person is apparently not able to afford them well considering the ratio of scooters to cars it might well be true that the average joe bloggs cannot afford a car. That is my point.[/quote]
Well for sure it means that they are cheaper than cars (that should be obvious). So is it that the person driving the scooter can’t afford a car or just chooses to go with the cheaper option (frugal)? I don’t think anyone can say that if punative measures are put in place against scooters there won’t be a significant increase in the number of automobiles as a result.[/quote]
Ok I agree with you on that. I think it would lead to some increase in cars yes; although some would probably go for public transport. I’d probably give up my scooter as I live near to the MRT. I might just might even get a car.
I do pay a premium. Well, maybe not a premium, but certainly around NT$18,000/month for transport and parking alone. Not including car maintenance. Worth every penny, to me. But sure, I’d like to see the fucking townies kicked off the roads. I’ll vote for you.