Central Taiwan is rich, loaded with money.
Yet their governnments continue to suck donkey balls, with criminal / gangster related families representing specific districts.
Will voters finally wake up? Until that happens, I think we can expect more of these horrible tragedies—enabled by half assed (non)governance—to occur.
Guy
But we’re more walkable than Tokyo! Didn’t you read all of the articles saying so!
Update to a case involving a 77yr. driver who after bumping into a parked vehicle when trying to park then panicked and slammed on the accelerator and cut across to the other side of the road and sandwiched a woman and her son on a scooter in between her car and another car, killing the mother has been sentenced. After reaching a settlement and receiving “forgiveness” from the victim’s family the driver was given a 10 month sentence, suspended for 2 years.
News video from the initial incident that shows the vehicle speeding towards the victims. Could’ve easily hurt and killed a lot more people.
2 more pedestrians hit in Taichung. Left turning driver.
After police arrive one officer was administering breathalyzer while the other walked off to start writing illegal parking tickets rather than help deal with the scene or direct traffic.
Police in response admit the officer was negligent and should’ve been assisting with the scene and the injured individuals and not walking around and writing tickets while ignoring the whole reason they were dispatched. The officer will face disciplinary action.
The husband isn’t mad about the tickets, but that this officer responded to a person being struck by immediately walking around writing tickets instead of managing the scene. While no officers directed traffic or set up safety cones, the husband was left to to do it himself. He himself got ticketed for not moving his car since the officer refused to assist with managing traffic and he didn’t want to leave his wife in the middle of the road with no one directing traffic. So he got a ticket too.
I don’t understand this legal system and mentality.
Another kid hit by a left turning driver. Looks like there was no oncoming traffic, so the driver has nothing to look for except for pedestrians…and still drives directly into the kid. This will probably be in the news tomorrow. Happened in Taoyuan.
Street view of the intersection from the direction the driver came from.
Pedestrian in New Taipei narrowly misses being hit by a bunch of falling rebar.
A car is illegally and someone calls the police. The police first call the registered owner to ask them to move their car. The owner says his car is parked at home and isn’t even in the same town. Police dispatch officers to check the reported location and it’s a fake plate. The driver had his plate suspended and went online to buy a fake one.
Love the illegally parked truck in this clip.
Some more major incidents today.
A very drunk driver blowing 0.92 and high on drugs crashed into 28 roadside parked scooters after veering towards the road divider and suddenly trying to dodge it. One pedestrian narrowly avoided being killed and managed to get away with some scrapes. The driver also had 2 passengers in his vehicle. Inside the vehicle were also drug laced coffee packets. This happened in Taichung near a school and right across the street from a District Sports Center. Admittedly I have less sympathy for those that were parked on the sidewalk as there is literally a NO PARKING ON SIDEWALK sign right there.
Also good thing how some news has to mention the most important thing, it’s an IMPORTED car that the high and drunk driver was driving.
A sanitation worker was killed this morning by a scooter rider suspected of being drunk. The scooter rider road right into the worker.
A driver in Tainan is suspected of losing control after attempting a terrible overtake. The driver was driving really close to the scooter and while trying to overtake the driver swerved back towards the scooter almost immediately then swerved away from the scooter and then went on to crash into a building.
It’s crazy just how much space Kaohsiung has and how there are still no sidewalks. More parking spaces that are perpendicular to the road. Even better, a bunch of cars with no plates or sitting around waiting to be scrapped take up all the free parking and sit there for years and years and even decades.
Another mentally ill person on the roads. Gets mad at a scooter rider for nothing and rides up to him with no helmet and assaults him.
It is fascinating how they can focus on such irrelevant matters while ignoring some of the most obvious problems shown in the videos. We can see this in almost any car/scooter crash video. No sidewalks, trucks/cars/scooters illegally parked, sidewalks blocked with crap and the most important item for them to discuss is that fact that it’s a foreign car, or its cost, or some other random irrelevant piece of information. It reminds me a bit of some of my students when I try to help them write short essays about what they see in a picture. They’ll pick some random thing, write a few sentences about it and then, finished! Meanwhile, there might be half a dozen people in the picture doing things, animals, trees, buildings, etc etc and they mention nothing.
And the scooter driving across the double-yellows.
Such a completely normal fact of everyday life that you just know they recorded this without realizing any traffic violations were occurring.
Someone called 110 about those scooters on the sidewalk a week earlier, but the police were still “rushing” to the scene.
Update to this. The driver didn’t call the police to report the incident. The student was in a hurry to get to school so she just left. Now the driver will be fined for failing to yield to a pedestrian and as well as a hit and run for failing to report the incident.
No real sidewalks around this area.
Another guy getting mad on the roads. This time a scooter rider was pissed off that he’s getting a ticket for running a red light. The man constantly keeps on yelling and complaining. The man says he won’t sign or accept the ticket and wants to know if he will get it in the mail which won’t happen because he refused to accept the ticket and the officer informs him of that fact. Then the guy gets really mad and gets up and starts walking towards the officer and even as she walking backwards to keep some distance screaming he will sign the ticket. The man even slaps the officer’s hand. The man did all of this in front of his wife/girlfriend who seemingly was constantly trying to get him to stop. How embarrassing. He got himself an extra NT$3000 fine for interfering with the officer’s duties.
79yr. old woman backing out with her scooter accidentally twists the throttle and accelerates into a store counter. Turns out she’s unlicensed.
Down in Kaohsiung a police officer tries to pull over a man on a scooter who ran a red light. The rider decides to flee and eventually crashes. After being caught police find him to have drugs in his system as well as being unlicensed. Police issued 19 traffic violations, which could add up to NT$235,200. Turns out the man is also wanted due to his previous dangerous driving and drug related offenses.
Another driver caught with quite a bit of drugs. 77 packets. Police only stopped the driver because he noticed the driver didn’t have his seatbelt buckled.
Hmm I wonder does Minister Chen support tackling the drug/drug driving problem and making all window tints comply with international standards and not grandfather anything in…ah nope, just regulate the tint and have zero equipment across pretty much the entirety of Taiwan’s police force (maybe they still don’t have any) and Motor Vehicle Offices (also maybe don’t have any or just very few devices). Don’t worry though the tint will have a compliant stamp on it, those totally won’t be faked like all the fake license plates we have.
Driver sees a white plate scooter on the expressway (with no problem keeping up with traffic and overtaking) and decides to change lanes accelerate to chase after them…despite coming up to his exit while using his phone. He also seemingly honks at the rider. Also while changing lanes he also seems to come close to cutting off the driver behind him that he should’ve just stayed behind to begin with. Oh and he technically missed his exit as he didn’t cross over before the dashed lines ended.
Ironically enough the scooters on the sidewalk there are the least problematic. At least there’s still some space (which isn’t saying much…it used to be A LOT worse), but at the intersection the sidewalk is often completely blocked by these few businesses. They will even park in a way that completely blocks the crosswalk.
The only thing police here enforce is the stupid hook turn despite the fact this road was recently redesigned to have a dedicated left turn lane and protected left turn phase and remove all motorcycle lane bans…but you still can’t make a normal left turn. Also notice how the outer lane has a right turn arrow…at a T-junction. 2025/2026 and these geniuses still use arrows to act as a way to notify drivers of a bend…despite already having signs regulated for such purposes…even on a road with very little bend like this.
Before it was the typical dogshit Taiwan road design, zigzagging lanes as you cross the intersection and no dedicated left turn lane or left turn phase.
Jeezus H Christ what a thread.
Guy
*Brought to by the skilled road users in Taiwan and the skilled traffic engineers.
Driver turning left, with no oncoming traffic (at the time), drives directly into a pedestrian on the crosswalk.
Good thing there is zero pedestrian infrastructure here in this part of Hsinchu City. Though from what I remember Hsinchu doesn’t have much at all anyways.
Scooter rider fails to yield to 3 pedestrians in front of a University and police at the intersection pull him over. One officer grabs the riders keys so the guy knocks it out of officer’s hand and hits the other officer in the chest. Police then have to put him on the floor. What would’ve just been a ticket (and some points but those are largely useless now) now ends up with him getting arrested and hit with other charges.
Another skilled driver hits a pedestrian island…before even entering the intersection on Taichung’s Taiwan Blvd.
Pedestrian jumps out of the way and narrowly avoids being hit by left turning driver.
Why are yield and stop markings so impossible to understand for people in Taiwan?
3 lanes of oncoming traffic, okay inner lane is a shared turn and through lane. Driver turns while there’s still an oncoming car. People in the hook turn box were close to get wacked real good in this accident. Both vehicles ended up hitting the pedestrian island which might’ve saved those in the hook turn box.
Have to love the hook turns.
Another pedestrian hit on the crosswalk. Near a school, already going slow coming up to the crosswalk…and just right into the pedestrian.
Well this one showed up in the news. Since it’s one of the main roads in Taichung there’s even clear CCTV footage of it. The driver just drives into it and pushes down the sign on it. The driver is mad and blames the design 
.
Two months ago this same one was hit.
Don’t do dumb overtakes on just because the vehicle in front of you is slowing down to turn at the junction.
What’s more impressive than a heat seeking missile? A Taiwan 三寶.
Taiwan has suicidal road users…maybe they would make great suicide drone pilots…or maybe they would just fly it back into their front yard and wonder what happened. More suicidal riding as grandma runs a red light with her grandchild in front of a car and gets upset at getting called out for it. The really sad thing is…this grandma is better than a lot of others out there just by having a helmet for the kid.
Blocking the entire Nat. Highway (except for the exit) and not because of an accident. Impressive!
Coming down from Wuling a vehicle almost plows head on into a travel bus after the driver drifts into the oncoming lane.
Truck driver makes a left turn onto DaZhi bridge and then crosses multiple lanes at once…right into a lady on a scooter in the outer lane and runs her over, killing her on the spot. The victim’s father had to identify her body. He suddenly starts shouting when being interviewed by news. He says she was already riding along the side, this shouldn’t have happened.
I know what police and MOTC will say.
遠離大車
(Stay away from larger vehicles…ignore the fact that many times they see you and try to kill you by forcing you out of your lane and into a parked car or tree or run you over).
靠右慢行
Another blind driver hitting a pedestrian while making a left turn. Woman in her 70s knocked to the ground.
Multiple pedestrians hit by a car as a driver in a night market backs up into multiple people and even a stall.
Very skilled driver who makes a left turn…and keeps turning left and hits a student on a mini-electric scooter and keeps going left and drives up and onto the sidewalk, pushing the scooter the whole way. The student is lucky to be alive. Fortunately she didn’t get run over. The driver said she was too nervous and accidentally pressed on the accelerator.
Pedestrians almost hit and police don’t issue a ticket to the car running a red light. Reasoning is that pedestrians are not on the crosswalk, but pedestrians can’t walk on the crosswalk because a car is completely blocking it.
Only 2 days later and this exact same pedestrian island has been hit again! The driver gets the car stuck on it. It was a company vehicle that she was driving.
Driver making a right turn hits the road divider.
Scooter rider stops as the car in front stops. The driver then suddenly starts backing up and hits her. The driver comes out and yells at her for riding too fast…even though she was stopped. The driver said he went the wrong way…so he decided to immediately start backing up without looking.
Lady on a scooter slowly moves over into the next lane as there is a car slowing down ahead to turn right. She doesn’t pay any attention to her surroundings and changes lanes right into the bus next to her and she gets runover and her head pops like a melon, killing her on the spot.
Another stupid same lane overtake.
Scooter rider not paying any attention and almost hits a pedestrian. Tons of old people riding around with their eyes always wondering off to the sides and not paying attention to anything actually important.
Wonderful road design. You’re riding along and as you come up to an underpass all of a sudden you see that now there’s a no motorcycle marking so you have to switch to the slow lane…and as expected an accident happens. Going straight dangerous…stuff like this where all of a sudden you randomly have to change lanes for no reason, super safe.
Driver gets mad for being fined for not yielding to a pedestrian. He shows news crews his dashcam footage showing nothing on the front facing footage. Footage from the report showed that there was clearly another pedestrian walking into the crosswalk already by the time the driver decided to turn and he clearly failed to yield, something which would’ve clearly been shown in the photos on the ticket he received…which he didn’t show news crews.
Another car using the sidewalk as a parking lot.
Red light ahead? Better look down and not maintain safe following distance and hit the person in front of me. Helmet immediately rolls away leaving the guy’s face to scrape across the ground.
Taiwan needs to start tracking helmet usage, helmet type and crash/injury statistics as well actually teach people how to choose and use a helmet. Also strengthen their helmet standards. Just drop the regular CNS standard and make the Advanced CNS helmet safety rating the default. I’d be surprised if more than 20% of people on the roads even wore their helmet strapped up properly and that’s not even counting people who clearly have a helmet that’s too big.
Hmm vehicle in front of me has left turn signal on coming up to an intersection? Better try to overtake at the intersection…while driving a large truck. Professional driver.
Taiwan number 1!!!
Even the plan B failed and the hoodie also failed to protect the head. Maybe hair was plan C?
A rather surprising announcement from the MOTC.
The Ministry of Transportation has announced that it plans to amend the traffic fine allocation to be 100% used for traffic and pedestrian safety improvements, up from the current 12%.
Local govts. must publicly list how the funds are being allocated and used every 6 months so the public can see where the money from the traffic fines is being spent.
This is expected to bring in NT$20 billion of funds for traffic safety per year.
Before celebrating anything, I’d like to remember The Wolf in Pulp Fiction and think about what Taiwan understands as improving pedestrian safety.
Green paint manufacturers must be throwing quite a party now.
THIS.
Remember what Taipei City is doing in the current era: “traffic and pedestrian safety improvement,” for these people, seems to mean systematically narrowing pedestrian spaces and encaging us with barriers. Meanwhile cars and scooters continue to roar through, often behaving badly like before. 
Guy
They’ll catch an ambulance, maybe not that one though.
