I want these scooters off the streets!

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
141

How people get to work isn’t a mere convience. Besides that’s really not the issue. The issue is what are the alternatives and how realistic are they? Also, so who decides what level of incovience another individaul should tolerate.

We agree.

Not critizing, questioning I don’t know jack about Japan. You do, you use Japan as a reasonable proxy for Taiwan. Maybe it is. So what do they do in Japan? Why can they get along without scooters while in Taiwan that’s doesn’t seem to be the case. Is the infrastructure the same? Is the urban environment the same? Climate? Automobile use I don’t know. How about some insight on this?

Vancouver hasn’t outlawed scooters but they aren’t prevalent. This despite the fact the the Sky Train System is vastly inferior to the MRT system here (no mass transit to either University). They are cheaper to run than cars but, are still not popular. My guess is that weather would be a major factor why this is the case. Another factor I’d guess at is driving regulations and their enforcement. In Canada filtering is not allowed so the difference in travel time between a scooter and a car and/or transit isn’t as great as it is here.

So then what’s your take on why things are different here vs. Japan with respect to scooter usage?

142

[quote=“monokuro”]Of course you are right, but if you want people to change, you need to give them a decent alternative.

A loop line on the MRT would help for a start, along with night buses.

As far as emissions go though, do 4 scooters really output a lot more than one car? (which has an engine much MUCH bigger than the combined scooter size)[/quote]

If the cars here in Taiwan are equipped with a catalyst, I am sure that one scooter will emit a type of pollution worse than a big car.
I am sure scooters do not have a catalyst.
For those big engines and the heavy weight, it is also very important to have highly efficient engine combustion. The automobile industry has spent billions in perfecting their engines and do have the patents for the technology.
I am very sure that what’s coming out of the scooters pipes is to a big part unburned gasoline.

@gman
Why are you using the third person singular when referring to yourself. Is your screen name being used by several persons?

[quote=“Gman”][quote=“Hamletintaiwan”]
I think, he needs a survey that will make him feel better about doing the wrong thing. [/quote]

He doesn’t need a survey to feel better about doing the wrong thing or the right thing where to you get that from. But, if he’s going to state something as fact he is damn well going to have to have something behind those so called ‘facts’. [/quote]

I know the numbers because I frequently visit the trade exhibits here in Taipei.

[quote=“Gman”]
You seem to think you know what’s best for the Taiwanese people and worse you seem to assume that their too stupid to see what you see. I’ve seen some posts here attributing the scooter usage to the fact that it’s simply because Taiwanese are lazy. I consider that borderline racisim.[/quote]
I don’t think that they are too stupid. But you brought it up, so, think about it.

[quote=“Gman”]
Edit: Your rhetorical question about their right to harm others is somewhat ironic given your electric scooter idea would transfer a measure of that pollution to the people living near the power plants needed to supply that extra electricity.[/quote]

That’s right, however, when taking a poo I always go to the bathroom for that and let the sewage treatment plant deal with it.
But I could do this on the street, too of course.

143

Likely a typo or an error dealing with nested quotes. Seriously, you couldn’t figure that out. Or have you now been reduced to grasping and trivial matters?

It’s inconsiderate to ask what something you aren’t capable of. If you can’t understand the thought behind what I’ve said just ask nicely. Other posters seem to have understood the point with little difficulty. But, you still haven’t said anything about why you think this scooter situation in Taiwan is what it is. So I’ll ask nicely, what do you think?

[quote][quote=“Gman”]
Edit: Your rhetorical question about their right to harm others is somewhat ironic given your electric scooter idea would transfer a measure of that pollution to the people living near the power plants needed to supply that extra electricity.[/quote]

That’s right, however, when taking a poo I always go to the bathroom for that and let the sewage treatment plant deal with it.
But I could do this on the street, too of course.[/quote]

This is a completely stupid analogy. So you think you could do it on the street do you? Go ahead then, try for one week see if you really can. Human waste gets collected and sent to a central location where it is contained before treatment and/or discharge. In order for your analogy to hold any water all emissions from all stacks would have to be collected at a central location. Your idiot analogy does support one thing I’ve mentioned about the need for an attractive alternative. After all pooping in a bath room offers numerous advantages to pooping in the street. In fact when I decide to poop in the bathroom the idea that I’m not contributing to any local pollution isn’t even a consideration in my deciding where I decide to poop.

144

Actually, gman, the poop analogy is better than you think and goes to highlight your unfamiliarity with conditions here. Taiwan has one of the lowest sewage treatment rates in the world. It is lower than China, the Philipines, Malaysia, and in the 90s (perhaps still now) it was lower than Angola.

Now are there special conditions for why this is so? Yes, and they have to do with the government treating this as a temporary stopover for 40 years. All part and parcel of the lack of vision for this place which manifests itself in so many ways, including transportation.

Why does Taiwan rely on a noisy, dangerous, polluting form of transport? Because the government was too lazy to ever implement any decent policies that balanced livability with convenience. Development was always the priority and trumped both the social and natural environment. This is not speculation but a widely understand part of taiwan’s modern history.

So this is why we still have ghost paper burning when Hong Kong, Singapore and other ethnic Chinese communities have all banned the practices. Gee, why could they do it? Because they have functioning governments who have the guts to implement policies for the greater civic good.

145

[quote=“Gman”]

It’s inconsiderate to ask what something you aren’t capable of. If you can’t understand the thought behind what I’ve said just ask nicely. Other posters seem to have understood the point with little difficulty. But, you still haven’t said anything about why you think this scooter situation in Taiwan is what it is. So I’ll ask nicely, what do you think? [/quote]
What does that mean?

[quote=“Gman”]
You seem to think you know what’s best for the Taiwanese people and worse you seem to assume that their too stupid to see what you see…[/quote]
From where did you get that assumption?

[quote=“Gman”]
Edit: Your rhetorical question about their right to harm others is somewhat ironic given your electric scooter idea would transfer a measure of that pollution to the people living near the power plants needed to supply that extra electricity.[/quote]

[quote=“Hamlet”]That’s right, however, when taking a poo I always go to the bathroom for that and let the sewage treatment plant deal with it.
But I could do this on the street, too of course.[/quote]

[quote=“Gman”]
This is a completely stupid analogy. So you think you could do it on the street do you? Go ahead then, try for one week see if you really can. Human waste gets collected and sent to a central location where it is contained before treatment and/or discharge. In order for your analogy to hold any water all emissions from all stacks would have to be collected at a central location. Your idiot analogy does support one thing I’ve mentioned about the need for an attractive alternative. After all pooping in a bath room offers numerous advantages to pooping in the street. In fact when I decide to poop in the bathroom the idea that I’m not contributing to any local pollution isn’t even a consideration in my deciding where I decide to poop.[/quote]

My analogy is not stupid, as a matter of fact, it really nailed it. Didn’t it? Of course I cannot poo on the street and there are good reasons for it. Almost the same reasons why these combustion engines should be banned from the cities.

146

[quote=“Gman”]

[quote][quote=“Gman”]
Edit: Your rhetorical question about their right to harm others is somewhat ironic given your electric scooter idea would transfer a measure of that pollution to the people living near the power plants needed to supply that extra electricity.[/quote]

That’s right, however, when taking a poo I always go to the bathroom for that and let the sewage treatment plant deal with it.
But I could do this on the street, too of course.[/quote]

This is a completely stupid analogy. So you think you could do it on the street do you? Go ahead then, try for one week see if you really can. Human waste gets collected and sent to a central location where it is contained before treatment and/or discharge. In order for your analogy to hold any water all emissions from all stacks would have to be collected at a central location. Your idiot analogy does support one thing I’ve mentioned about the need for an attractive alternative. After all pooping in a bath room offers numerous advantages to pooping in the street. In fact when I decide to poop in the bathroom the idea that I’m not contributing to any local pollution isn’t even a consideration in my deciding where I decide to poop.[/quote]

I get his point. I think he’s trying to say that pooping in the toilet and allowing the sewage plant to deal with the waste as opposed to just disposing of it in the street is a better solution, much like letting a power plant that has the capability to handle an increased load and more effectively deal with its own pollution is preferable to everyone making their own pollution everywhere with no control or limit.

He wasn’t including personal preference/hygiene/whatever into it. You did that.

Change poop to trash and see if it makes sense to you. You could put trash anywhere. You could also put it in the landfill where it is properly managed. You could drive around a horribly-burning gasoline scooter around and contribute pollution, or you could recharge and let the managed power plant deal with your increased load more efficiently. I think that’s the point.

147

Also, bear in mind that:

  • a coal power plant (the nasty polluting kind you’re thinking of) runs at full chuff regardless, anyway. Typically, coal and nuclear are used to meet base load requirements, while gas turbines (which generally only pump out CO2) are easier to crank up and down for load balancing.
  • an electric scooter drawing power from the grid has a “well-to-wheel” efficiency four of five times better than an IC engine, assuming standard urban traffic. If you had 20 million scooters averaging one hour a day on the roads, they’d add about 5-10GWh/day to the national load. Very roughly speaking, that’s about a third of the capacity of a modest coal plant, or the entire capacity of a single small gas-fired type.
  • apart from a few of the older ones, power stations do have much more effective scrubbing than IC engines, which usually have none at all, and their pollution is removed from urban centres.

In other words, replacing every single scooter on the roads with an electric equivalent would make no noticeable difference to people living near coal-fired power stations, and would massively reduce the country’s overall pollution emissions.

The only downside is the nature of the machines themselves. Most electric scooters are very poorly designed, which mean they don’t last long and aren’t easy to recondition or recycle. The batteries, especially, represent a hard-to-recycle use of resources with a very short lifetime.

148

People aren’t pooping in the streets here as a matter of due course are they? They use toilets, no? Whether the sewage is treated or merely discharged isn’t what the issue is. After all Victoria, B.C. doesn’t treat their raw sewage but discharges it to the Ocean or, did so until VERY recently.

Typical really but again you are actually making my point for me. The issue isn’t what the government does with the raw wastes it collects. The point is that Taiwanese have a choice where they can poop. They can poop in the street or in a washroom. The VAST majority choose to poop in the bathroom. I’m am very confident that local environmental quality has little to do with their decision to use the bathroom.

But, how does all this argue for a ban on scooters? After all, no other place has had to resort to a ban. You are right development is the priority here. So wouldn’t that be the proper way to deal with this the environment here be to deal with the root of these development issues? Again, I’m not going to say that it is impossible or improper that banning or very heavily restricting scooter use may be needed. But, at this point there are questions that should be answered. I haven’t seen anything refute the possibility that the benefits of banning scooter would end up being mitigated by more people turning to cars. You seem to think it will, I doubt it. You seem to think your opinion is automatically right (I maybe mistaken but, that is how you’ve come across) but, you haven’t really supported that view.

To be clear I’m only against an all out ban or any other blanket policy without due study. I’m perfectly willing to see it decreed that those 50cc smokers must go or that any scooters over 5 years old needs to be emissions tested. I’m not sure if catalytic converter technology is applied to new scooter or if it is even effective. If it is effective and it isn’t current being applied then I agree it should be mandated.

I understand that, it’s also an easier thing to ban as it is pretty hard to demonstrate how banning it will materially affect ones living standards.

Edit: Victoria BC screens their raw sewage.

149

[quote=“finley”]Also, bear in mind that:

  • a coal power plant (the nasty polluting kind you’re thinking of) runs at full chuff regardless, anyway. Typically, coal and nuclear are used to meet base load requirements, while gas turbines (which generally only pump out CO2) are easier to crank up and down for load balancing.
  • an electric scooter drawing power from the grid has a “well-to-wheel” efficiency four of five times better than an IC engine, assuming standard urban traffic. If you had 20 million scooters averaging one hour a day on the roads, they’d add about 5-10GWh/day to the national load. Very roughly speaking, that’s about a third of the capacity of a modest coal plant, or the entire capacity of a single small gas-fired type.
  • apart from a few of the older ones, power stations do have much more effective scrubbing than IC engines, which usually have none at all, and their pollution is removed from urban centres.

In other words, replacing every single scooter on the roads with an electric equivalent would make no noticeable difference to people living near coal-fired power stations, and would massively reduce the country’s overall pollution emissions.

The only downside is the nature of the machines themselves. Most electric scooters are very poorly designed, which mean they don’t last long and aren’t easy to recondition or recycle. The batteries, especially, represent a hard-to-recycle use of resources with a very short lifetime.[/quote]

I actually don’t have strong objections to e-scooters. I don’t even think the running silent issue is a serious consideration. They pretty much sound the same to any pedestrian or other scooter rider listening to their mp3 player. Or some motorist with his windows rolled up or stereo blasting. I’ve never yet heard of a motorist getting off because they were able to say that the person they ran down should have heard them coming.

Currently, they are just not viable. As you say, the available designs are poor and the current infrastructure wouldn’t come close to meeting the needs. Even if I bought one today there is simply no place in my garage I could charge it without fighting a battle with my neighbors or the council.

150

I already addressed this. We already know the average salaried worker in Taiwan makes around NT30,000. This just simply is not enough to run a car if you live in an urban area where you’ll need to pay for parking. This makes sense intuitively, financially and is backed up anecdotally. A survey is not going to add much weight to the argument. And yes this is an argument. To restate it: the average worker does not make enough of a salary to presuppose that he or she will be willing or able to assume the cost of both purchasing and running a car. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that a ban on scooters will not see an increase in car usage.

To add to this we have the evidence of a few years ago when gas prices rose suddenly and car drivers started shifting to scooters. This is not anecdotal but Ministry of Transportation and Highways stats as reported widely in local media.

We can assume that Taiwanese are extremely price sensitive and so unlikely to vastly increase their transport budget (to possibly 40% or more of their entire salary as you need to add in gas, repairs, insurance, taxes, and parking at home and work) simply for the sake of convenience.

Who is actually arguing for an outright ban? You keep making that up. Most of us want it harder to use a scooter, for people to have to pay more for their “convenience,” for cleaner scooters, and for a greater budget toward public options all of which will push for less scooter usage. We all seem to agree that most people are going to want and need some form of personal transport, though this can be fulfilled in many ways, including clean rental vehicles and taxis.

151

HAHA you have a garage!! There’s no way I’m going to carry that big ass battery down my street then up 4 flights of stairs every time I go home.

If only there were some kind of substance that I could refuel my vehicle with very conveniently when it’s low…

Hydrogen is picking up a little in the states (mostly in California). What if Taiwan were to take the same approach? It would definitely be possible here, I think. I wouldn’t mind driving a little out of my way (like that would even be far in Taipei) to a hydrogen station. There are enough scooters to make it a possibility. If there were a company that could open little hydrogen stations only for motorcycles, and sell conversion kits, while the govt pressured scooter makers into using hydrogen…that would be the solution to pollution problems! Not traffic…but at least pollution! I don’t know anything about the costs involved in this, but it’s a nice idea.

152

HAHA you have a garage!! There’s no way I’m going to carry that big ass battery down my street then up 4 flights of stairs every time I go home.

If only there were some kind of substance that I could refuel my vehicle with very conveniently when it’s low…

Hydrogen is picking up a little in the states (mostly in California). What if Taiwan were to take the same approach? It would definitely be possible here, I think. I wouldn’t mind driving a little out of my way (like that would even be far in Taipei) to a hydrogen station. There are enough scooters to make it a possibility. If there were a company that could open little hydrogen stations only for motorcycles, and sell conversion kits, while the govt pressured scooter makers into using hydrogen…that would be the solution to pollution problems! Not traffic…but at least pollution! I don’t know anything about the costs involved in this, but it’s a nice idea.[/quote]

How hard would it be for 7-Elevens to install a battery charging bay for, say, 20 batteries at a time. Seriously, if it’s gonna net a regular profit, businesses will quickly pick it up. If you’re looking for a showstopper, that isn’t it.

153

So now someone is going to replace their scooter ride to and from the 7-11 with a walk lugging a battery for charging to and from the 7-11 (or at least one way lugging the battery and one way walking their unpowered scooter)? Yeah, I’m afraid this would be a show stopper for many. You’re going to need to be able to charge the batteries close to home. You may also need to have charging stations available at work as well so that you can charge your vehicle will you work. Probably doable but hardly simple.

154

My sister in-law makes 28,000 NT / month and she runs a car. Bought it new actually, Toyota something or other. Her co-workers also own cars. They aren’t mirages. Intuition and assumptions don’t cut it.

Completely believable but, how does that reinforce your point? Of course they shifted to scooters, they had an incentive to do so. How would removing the option to switch to a scooter help this situation? One way this circumstance would be helpfull, would be to look at changes in pollutant level when this shift to scooters occurred. Now you would have quantified data on the true effect scooters have on the air quality. Give me the dates of when this occurred and I’ll see if I can find the air quality data myself. Now we’re talking some hard facts!!

Yet contrary to your assumptions they do. Not everybody works in the most crowded area’s. Infact, those work locations where density is very high are likely also very well served by transit anyways. Those folks are likely already mostly transit users. There are building near my place (Neihu) where there is ample parking available. So sky high parking fees are likely only to be an issue in areas that are already well served by transit. Don’t give me assumptions and certainly don’t be setting policy on assumptions. FACTS man! Maybe they support you maybe they don’t what’s the harm in investigating?

Someone mentioned a ban. If I feel like it I’ll comb the thread and see if I can find it. However, I’ve mentioned alot of things on this thread that you alone haven’t advocated or opposed. I’m not really arguing against you specifically. Otherwise I’d move this to a PMs. So don’t take every point I argue against as a personal rebuttal.

Besides, let’s take a ban off the table. So, instead you are talking about jacking up the cost of using a scooter by a large amount. So now you a placing the sacrifice of choice on to the backs of the lower income earners. Where as the higher income earners will still have that choice.

In general I think our overall point of contention is you want to act in a manner based on assumptions and your personal opinion. I’m saying it’s not appropriate to simply do so without serious study first. When I bring up the opinion that many people will substitute their scooters for cars I’m stating it as something that needs to be considered. You want to dismiss out of hand anything that doesn’t jive with your personal outlook.

You want to attribute the poor air quality mainly to scooter usage. Well why not quantify that impact? It sounds like there should be some data available to that ends. What happens if you find out that far more of the particulate matter that cause the worst of the problems isn’t due to scooter but rather due to trucks or buses or automobiles. What if it turns out enacting you’re policies will only result in a 10% improvement? Yes, I’m sure that’s good enough for you to justify it but, you are not the majority. We can talk about sacrifices and benifits well, good sense would seem to dictate a cost benifit analysis to any policy that might be enacted. How many times has some policy been inacted without proper due dilligance only to end up aggrivating the very condition it was designed to alleviate?

I’m not sure that clean retal vehicles and taxis will provide a solution. First, what do you mean my clean rental vehicles? It sounds promising but what do you mean? Bicycles? E-Bike? Are they an alternative now? As for taxis, if everyone who goes to my gym starts taking taxis or their own car emmissions are going to go up. I imagine that would be true for any trip where I or anyone else takes a cab instead of a scooter. And will they be economically equivalent to the choices they are replacing.

155

So now someone is going to replace their scooter ride to and from the 7-11 with a walk lugging a battery for charging to and from the 7-11 (or at least one way lugging the battery and one way walking their unpowered scooter)? Yeah, I’m afraid this would be a show stopper for many. You’re going to need to be able to charge the batteries close to home. You may also need to have charging stations available at work as well so that you can charge your vehicle will you work. Probably doable but hardly simple.[/quote]
Where is the problem?
The infrastructure is already there or do you know any place in the city more than 10 meters away from a power-line.
During the last oil price hike, all politicians promised to put the charging stations in place everywhere. Just talk for popularity.

Kick half the cars out of the city.
Create a nice parking lane, along the roads, for cars and scooters.
Reserve the sidewalks for pedestrians only.

There should be charging posts wherever scooters park. The electricity can be paid via an account and the user could be verified via a chip in the plug.

156

Are you so clueless as to think that Taiwanese do not travel to other parts of the world and have not seen other systems? I grew up in L.A. where daily pollution was very bad. It took decades to bring down the pollution levels in in L.A. There are also noisy areas in Japan as well. Just try living where the high speed railway or other trains pass by or by living close to a railway station, or near some main roads. Do you think they run silently? Should we compare Taipei to Hong Kong? Or maybe Singapore? Maybe London or New York? Or perhaps Beijing?

I also can walk the pavements and enjoy the fresh air and live in relatve peace and quiet. Nobody is criticizing expats for wanting to see improvements. But ranting on as if these changes can be made in 5 minutes by banning scooters? Some people just have unrealistic expectations. Why not applaud the efforts made with the billions spend on building the HSR and MRT systems. It’s not like you can just shift people off property because you would like to see a new MRT line built, plus the associated costs of building and operating them. Have those posting been here 20 years or so like Sandman who have seen the progress made. Notwithstanding that with the increase of wealth more people buy motor vehicles, requiring more roads, parking spaces and expressways.

At least in many places now you can rent those public bicycles which you can return to many areas.

157

Do they do this where you come from?

158

Do they do this where you come from?[/quote]
I am living here, therefore I am concerned with what the government is doing here.
My government in Germany also promised to put charging stations in place but I think it’s all too little and too slow.

[quote=“Dr Spock”]
Nobody is criticizing expats for wanting to see improvements. But ranting on as if these changes can be made in 5 minutes by banning scooters? Some people just have unrealistic expectations. Why not applaud the efforts made with the billions spend on building the HSR and MRT systems. It’s not like you can just shift people off property because you would like to see a new MRT line built, plus the associated costs of building and operating them. Have those posting been here 20 years or so like Sandman who have seen the progress made. Notwithstanding that with the increase of wealth more people buy motor vehicles, requiring more roads, parking spaces and expressways.

At least in many places now you can rent those public bicycles which you can return to many areas.[/quote]
What do you mean by that "Expats for wanting to see improvement?

Sounds like that I am as an Expat are not allowed to want anything. My wife is Taiwanese then and on her behalf.
She wants the scooters off the street even faster. She is much more concerned about health than I am. She even refuses to drink sodas of any kind.

I have seen the progress made here and I have sniffed enough gasoline here to wanting to see improvements even faster, perhaps before it kills me.

159

What do you mean by that "Expats for wanting to see improvement. Sounds like that I am as an Expat are not allowed to want anything. My wife is Taiwanese then and on her behalf.
She wants the scooters off the street even faster. She is much more concerned about health than I am. She even refuses to drink sodas of any kind. I have seen the progress made here and I have sniffed enough gasoline here to wanting to see improvements even faster, perhaps before it kills me.[/quote]

Please quote the full sentence of what I wrote. It will help you if you read it slowy perhaps. I did not imply that expats are not allowed to want anything. I said that nobody is criticizing expats for wanting to see improvements. Which can be read as expats want to see improvements. So does everybody. Even if your wife wants scooters off the streets it is not going to happen. Even in Germany people ride scooters and motorcycles. Does she want them banned there as well? Your wife refuses to drink sodas :thumbsup: :thumbsup: Good for her if it makes her happy. It’s healthier not to have an overdose of sugar water anyway.

Perhaps your wife should be concerned since you are into gasoline sniffing. It’s not good for you and yes it may kill you even thought you might get high first.

160

[quote=“Hamletintaiwan”]To make it short.

I hate them.
Their gasoline combustion is so terribly incomplete that it makes us become sniffers.
They are making such a big deal here if someone gets caught with a joint. When driving a scooter, however, you can let people sniff your gasoline as much as these things can blow through their pipes, often straight into the face.

Are these people aware of the health-risks involved in sniffing unburned gasoline?
For example; you could smoke pot everyday for 20 and more years and still be a functioning human being. After a few years of sniffing gas, however, your brain is toast.
Besides, gasoline damages pretty much all the organs and is proven to cause cancer.

So, when will the government have the guts and step in. The technology to have them run on electricity is here, eventually with a combustion engine as a range extender.
All these scooters burning or better not burning gas at the traffic lights is mass suicide.[/quote]
Why not just wipe everyone out except for a few females and then come back when they are all gone and smoke as much pot as you want?