Again, it’s one person at one point on time on one road. So what?
One time does not paint a picture. It’s a pixel.
This is why we have statistics.
They help us paint a picture.
From the picture we derive conclusions.
Cannot make a conclusion from one time/incident
Cause it is disingenuous to draw conclusions about the state of an entire country from individual incidents. One must take a look at the whole picture.
Correct, you can reduce the risk greatly.
I’ve been in the UK in crazy wave we had over christmas, probably the highest proportional number of cases in the developed world. As i’ve said, taking personal responsibility works pretty good.
However in taiwan i’ve been nearly run over several times. Other than running across the road like a deer, how can i have any control over what a dangerous driver does?
That’s one particularly cold way to look at it.
Another way is the recent news article was a kid going to school, who couldn’t even cross the road to get to her school safely. If you think it’s not a big deal then fine, but i’d say there’s some big issues with your country when your child cannot even get to school without risk of death.
What’s the risk of death?
0.00782608695%
That’s the risk for the little girl and everyone else in Taiwan.
There is no such thing as 0 risk. You are fooling yourself.
One incident is a freak accident.
Are children being mowed down on this road hourly? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? No.
1800 people die in Taiwan due to traffic per year. The sky is falling.
1800 people die in the UK in traffic AND 126 000 deaths of Corona in a year.
Then Taiwan must be the king of personal responsibility 
One incident means nothing when trying to determine a problem. One incident is a freak accident. One incident is not a pattern.
We don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater for individual incidents. THAT’s common sense.
No, you throw the baby under the bus.
That was pretty dark and insensitive.
Tell me. What is an acceptable number of deaths, rate of death and level of risk?
I make it a point to do this every where it says don’t do it. Make them learn. Invest in better piping.
Says the person who puts a smiley after listing the UKs number of corona deaths, and says “so what” “look at the bigger picture” after kids get killed outside of their school.
No. I laughed at the absurdity of your post. Don’t misrepresent what I said.
You’re saying Taiwan’s risk of road fatalities is too high.
That’s your argument and you’re intentionally ignoring the other parts of the post to paint me in a bad light in bad faith.
You should laugh at the absurdity of your own posts, calling others strawman when trying to equate corona virus deaths with traffic safety.
Is public health not a safety issue? I’m not equating Corona deaths with traffic safety. Death is death. And you have a risk of death in every situation you are in.
I guarantee you a dead person does not care if they were killed by a bus or a disease or hiking.
Tell me.
You have turned into gain.
I don’t know cus the current stats don’t -as you like to say- give the full picture. I don’t believe the traffic in NZ is equally as bad as TW. Even if the stats are the same.
I’ll go one better for you, i’ll give you a rule which will make a big improvement to pedestrian safety and start to improve the dangerous driving mindset in taiwan overall. All cars should have to stop at pedestrian crossings, including turnings.
You have no idea but the number is too high.
I can help give good faith arguments for why I think this is the way it is if you want me to.
At EVERY pedestrian crossing? And cause dangerous unsafe gridlock? At EVERY traffic light? Even if it’s green?
They don’t even do this in other developed countries. Come on…
Every single intersection in Taiwan should be an all way stop? WHAT?
Hi guys I just want to share a bit of insight for the intense discussion. Deaths occured in traffic accdident is counted differently in TW. If the victim is dead within 24 hours than it’s added to the final stats (A1 type incident). The number gets published, which is what you have quoted from various reports. If s/he dies after 24 hours, it’s not counted (categoried as A2 type incident).
Taiwan reports deaths as cardiac arrest or heart failure. Look the recent train accident. How many are listed as same.
I’m having trouble finding the data but I do believe that Taiwan does not include deaths that occur in hospital after the accident. Only deaths by the road side are motor vehicle deaths.
This is my own view on driving/traffic in Taiwan based on personal experiences.
First let me explain my frame of reference.
I have had the chance to personally drive in places such as US, Canada, UK, UAE, China, Germany, Netherlands and Turkey.
I didn’t drive but experienced traffic (as a passenger) over multiple trips and hundreds of kilometers in places like Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, South Africa and most Central/Southern European countries.
Last but not least, I have also had the “pleasure” of driving in places like Yemen, Oman, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Philippines and Egypt.
Here are a few pictures for your entertainment (from my travels) :
So here’s my take :
Driving behavior in a “third world country” is impacted by a lot of factors. The infrastructure and economy plays a very important role. There are many places where you can’t even find traffic lights because government couldn’t bother / afford to pay for them. Driving in some of these places is dangerous indeed. Traffic enforcement is non-existent. I can definitely say that I have experienced far worse traffic/driving behavior than that of Taiwan. In fact, I thank God each time I am back on Taiwanese roads after a few trips to some of the countries I mentioned. 
With that being said, everything (in terms of traffic/driving) I’ve seen and experienced in so-called “third world countries” is unsurprising and totally within my expectation of those places. Some people in these countries suffer miserable lives, as these countries struggle with deep economic issues such as lack of basic necessities e.g. electricity, gas, water, infrastructure. There are a lot of societal issues too, such as massive corruption, crime, terrorism, extreme poverty.
There often isn’t any alternative modes of transportation, e.g. LRTs or MRTs. So, Taxis, buses, and other smaller modes of commercial transportation are abundant. In fact, I’d say public/commercial transportation sometimes outnumber private vehicles, because the huge population needs to move but vast majority of the people cannot afford to buy a car. Many of these commercial drivers (and the passengers included) may have average incomes of <5000NT in a month. So, I’d imagine they’d drive fast and reckless because sometimes that’s what it takes to put food on the table. On rare occasions you have to drive fast to escape flying bullets, or an explosion.
Now, coming to Taiwan. Traffic/Driving in Taiwan is DEFINITELY not as bad as a third-world country, but sometimes it gets pretty close.
The only saving grace is the vastly superior infrastructure (vs third world countries) and “traffic lights”. But I am still sometimes shocked to see such driving behavior in a country that is frequently featured in every other list of “best” countries.
Taiwan cannot be compared to a third-world country by any other metric, GDP per capita, infrastructure, crime, HDI etc… But it is concerning that Taiwan, being such a highly developed country and having outstanding road & infrastructure still sometimes has drivers driving in them like they ARE in a third world country.
In fact, I have run some “simulations” in my head, imagining swapping all of the drivers between Taiwan and Yemen to see what’d happen. The results are not in Taiwanese favor. 
Yemeni driving behavior is bad but not much different from Taiwanese but I reckon Yemenis would better themselves simply by experiencing “nicer roads” and “traffic lights” (and not dying from starvation). On the other hand I expect Taiwanese drivers to turn Yemen in to “Mad Max” within in a year.
I don’t mean to diss Taiwan. I am really grateful to be here. I love Taiwan, and would chose it over every other place I have lived in. On a day-to-day basis I don’t actually have any difficulty handling Taiwanese drivers/traffic, because I have experienced far worse. But I really DO wish that Taiwan would fix this some day. It really doesn’t go well with the image of a highly developed country/society.
On a positive note, Taiwan is one of the most convenient places ever when it comes to transportation. In Kaohsiung, I can choose LRT, MRT, Bus, Youbike, Gokube or Uber. I can be anywhere in the city and there are always multiple options to going anywhere.
Yes I just read the metric when accounting for A1 + A2 type accidents Taiwans traffic fatality rate increases 5 fold vs A1 only. It was a nice tricky way to use statistics to hide how deadly drivers here actually are. Roughly 300,000 people are injured in traffic accidents each year in Taiwan…thats pitiful for a nation of 23.5 million.
Nice
I’m not quite sure if we are living in the same Taichung but I find traffic remarkably tame there compared to Kaohsiung or even Taipei. Speeds seem low, I haven’t seen an accident in years whereas I’d see one in Kaohsiung at least once a week and a few fatal. I actually get annoyed with the drivers as they seem much too careful for my liking 
, they are all scared to turn right on red because there is always cops lurking
Just maybe you have assimilated?
Could be. Ktown had much more serious accidents through due to wide streets, racing kids and light runners
Taichung and even Taipei aren’t as bad and cops actually enforce rules. Even Ktown may have changed since I lived there last, i heard they have cameras everywhere there now.
