That isn’t going to work. They need the address the underlying reason more and more jurisdictions aren’t fully recognising their licences. It has nothing to do with diplomatic relationships, Australian States don’t fully recognise PRC licences either.
Anyway, I’ll need to do the theory and practical tests, they said I don’t have to do the training because I already hold a motorcycle licence from Australia…. This is weird as that means they recognise my Australian licence, just can’t swap it.
Maybe I should visit PNG and get my licence swapped there, then return to Taiwan and swap that
Even the period Taiwan will authorise a IDP for, is dependent on the country of issue, for instance most Australian states will only allow people to drive on IDP for 3 months, so Taiwan will only authorise the use in Taiwan for Aussies on IDP up to 3 months. But if the originating country allows 12 months, Taiwan will allow 12 months. This is nonsensical, can’t Taiwan have its own rules for everyone?
I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the countries Taiwan allows licence exchanges with, require no testing at all.
I’m pretty sure if I went to one of the Pacific countries Taiwan recognises for licence exchange, to exchange my Aussie licence, I’d be required to pay a large unscheduled fee in cash.
I remember lol’ing hard 3 or 4 years ago reading the MOU between the UK and Taiwan where it note both countries had similar standard of roads and driver proficiency levels.
Local governments must also implement improvement plans if they are found to lack streets, sidewalks and arcades that meet barrier-free policies, the amendment states.
Earlier this year in September a 30yr. old Taiwanese tourist in Jeju, S. Korea killed a pedestrian who was crossing the street. After reaching a settlement with the victim’s family he was given a 2 year suspended sentence with a 4 year probation.
Here’s a meme/joke picture that gets shared around a lot in traffic related groups discussing this kind of issue regarding driver’s and their “blind spots” in Taiwan. They might have eyes, but they’re no use if they don’t know how to use them.
Yellow is your line of sight/vision and the gray/darkened area are your blind spots.
I was almost hit on a YouBike the other day. Single one way traffic lane narrowed due to parking on both sides and there’s a ~30s red light just 30-40m ahead with a motorcycle/bicycle waiting box in front. I take the lane due to it narrowing and no traffic besides me and car driver comes up behind me after pulling out from his garage or qilou and starts honking at me 6+ times and almost runs into me. All that so we can sit at the red light for ~20s and I still get to be in front because of the waiting box. I was going to move over anyway once it widened up near the traffic light anyways…zero patience.
I think a Taiwanese YouTuber who lives in Japan explained it best when he did a video about traffic after coming back to Taiwan for a visit. He said people on the roads in Taiwan are in a hurry for the sake of being in a hurry.
Also general understanding of visibility and looking seems to be something that needs to be worked on from the ground up.
I think car licenses should be suspended easily, then permanently revoked, and driving without a license should be punished with jail time. As it is now, there are barely any consequences when something goes really wrong, let alone for the smaller bad behaviours that lead to deaths
On the road today had multiple instances of scooters cutting the watermelon while making a left and having to correct halfway through their turn to avoid collision. Like they’re trying to hit the apex in a racecourse.
Well we did have that for a little while until all the professional driver unions came to the MOTC and complained. Don’t worry though, they will make you take class next year if you blatantly run red lights 3 times or almost hit a pedestrian a couple of times! No points or suspension though.
Remember those traffic assistants in Tainan who were trained by police and given official duties to help with traffic and deal with illegal parking and then were pushed aside and got down to less than 1 or 2 tickets a day on average if that and have had councilors complain about them… Well they are being made to deal with illegal parking again…but with more restrictions. They have been restricted to only being able to issue tickets for parking on sidewalks, parking on red lines only if it is within 10m of the intersection, and parallel parking.
I don’t know what to say for this. Just impressive how bad of a driver this is.
Driver with great situational awareness sees a truck coming up behind him fast as traffic is at a stand still on the freeway and quickly gets out of the way.
Here’s an interesting story. Famous steamed bun place down south in Hengchun, 小杜肉包, is in the news again for the illegal parking problem.
Previously local police had officers stationed there quite often to drive away people illegally parking but have these past few years resorted to using traffic cameras just to catch illegal parking and automatically issue tickets for essentially just this one spot on prov. highway 26.
This year so far 3902 tickets have been issued for illegal parking there, a 423 increase compared to last year for the same time period in 2023, which also had the camera in use. So about a 12% increase despite the continued use of the traffic camera to issue tickets AND the business has had a big sign set up right there to warn customers not to park there as after 3 minutes the camera will automatically issue a ticket. The sign even advises people to just go down the road and legally park on the shoulder just down the road.
The owner says it has had a significant effect on his business. One person interviewed by the news says it (the traffic cam) is unreasonable saying how can you expect people to do business…
Interestingly enough the news says you can’t park on the sidewalk here, because well that’s illegal. Well after looking at the MOI sidewalk map it doesn’t look to be a public sidewalk so seems like you should be able to park on it. The other side of the street is a public sidewalk though and has tons of illegally parked vehicles on it that based on what I can see on google maps seem like do not get any tickets issued from the traffic camera.
To finally deal with this issue the buisiness owner decided to get his friend to help him buy the land across the street to build a parking lot. Well his friend scammed him and used the money to speculate on land and then borrowed money from loan sharks, leaving the owner with NT$160 million in debt and even after selling off some land he’s still NT$20 million in debt. He says he hopes his friend will come forward and pay him back.
Also they were in the news recently as well for having moldy steam buns after a customer who bought some and took some back to New Taipei to give to her family got diarrhea after eating them and then saw they had obvious spots of mold on them. The customer privately contacted the business who sent them some frozen buns which had obvious spots of mold on them. Now the local health bureau has been investigating to figure out what’s going on and find out if it’s the business that messed up or the customer.
Here’s google street view going as far back as you can on this side of the street showing what it looked like in 2012 here in front of the business. A whole lane on the major prov. highway that runs through the area is completely blocked off due to all the illegally parked vehicles.
Guess what…that inner lane bans motorcycles and for this you are not allowed to go around. It’s even one of the questions on the motorcycle license test. You are supposed to call the police and wait…
Picture of the sign they put up in front of their business to warn customers and to tell them go up the road to park on the shoulder or parking lot nearby.
Other side of the street where the sidewalk is full of illegally parked vehicles forcing pedestrians into the prov. highway where speed limit is 60…meaning in any decent conditions people are going 70.
Actually from the other side of the street’s street view you can see that there are many cars illegally parked on the red line right where the camera is pointing.
Just a couple seconds of driving up the road you can park here on the shoulder. Some people parking on the sidewalk though. This sidewalk also doesn’t seem to be a public sidewalk according to the MOI sidewalk map.
There’s also this spot right before you come up to the place where there’s a convenience store. Now doesn’t this look like a safe crossing for pedestrians where you have to wait and potentially get slammed into by speeding traffic…
It really winds me up when people make the earliest turn possible and cut into the opposite lane. Like there is just zero benefit to it. You are just asking to hit somebody.
Its just brain dead, people really didnt see what was wrong with it either.
Well written post. But, also, what can we say? L. Oh. L. Typical. Henchuan, police? Another lol. There are numerous spots there, not even on on the national roadways, but the county ones that are a full shit show. No idea about this specific scam situation, but the area is pretty famous for low class douche bags selling out their own mothers for the racket. Even government officials. There once was hope for a new balloon festival there as well haha. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Bummer. Not the restsruants’ problem, need not get involved. Period. The story is deeper and the person is hiding doing some shady shit. Obviously. Otherwise, like any eatery, parking is rarely their problem.
