I know that Omni gleemed some info from the news article and concluded that Dave would have arrived at the scenic spot in the afternoon, but I agree… I have a lot of trouble believing that a foreigner could have a rather serious scooter accident at a popular scenic area in the middle of a beautiful sunny temperate day and NO ONE WAS THERE TO WITNESS IT? That seems absolutely impossible to me.
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If it had to happen in the afternoon the accident on the main road idea seems impossible, definitely.
So a big key part of this is the wife mentioning cctv footage of 2 cars stopping and 4 guys getting out( 2 from each car) and 5 guys getting in, she was pretty sure one was Dave.
No mention of the footage anywhere and when I asked my government about the file they said no mention of footage, no mention of helicopter.
When wife was asked again about helicopter she said she was to upset and her sister hired them to look.
Look where I do not know if he got into a car.
Would there be surveillance cameras in thar area?
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It would be highly unlikely it happened during the day at anyplace back from the road either. This is a very popular spot. I’ve been half a dozen times, there’s always people around and it’s quite open. Someone would have seen it.
I’ll amend this to say very early in the morning it might be pretty empty. Anytime from 8-9am until dark would have plenty of foot traffic.
Can’t say for sure but it’s likely.
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Another thing, the helmet on the wall, is it missing that broken piece on the ground by the bike?
Can anybody tell
Can’t tell… but I wouldn’t look to much at that. It’s from a completely different news report and people put helmets everywhere in Taiwan.
Ok thank you. Thought it was from same report.
Couldn’t imagine somebody committing suicide with their helmet on, so wheres the helmet?
Is it law to wear one there?
Yes, it’s a law to wear one. I don’t think anyone should jump to suicide at this point.
Could you answer a few of questions about the CCTV footage?
- In what conversation did the wife mention the CCTV footage? When did this conversation take place? Who was she conversing with? Has she mentioned it in any other corresponence? Do you have this correspondence in writing? or was it mentioned in a phone call?
- Did she say the location of the cameras? A nearby gas station? A road camera (some roads and intersections in Taiwan have cameras)?
- Did she say who showed her the footage? Did the police show it to her? Did she find it in her own search? Was it reported to the police?
- Did she mention what time of day the footage took place in? Daytime or nighttime? Time stamp?
- Did she mention if Dave looked injured in the footage? Injured seriously or some scratches? A limp?
I know you wont have all of those answers, but any clarification would be helpful.
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There are conflicting reports about what was found in the scooter’s under-the-seat storage compartment. The ETtoday report says aluminium foil and a battery (車廂內還有鋁箔紙和電瓶). The video says a sheet of aluminium foil and a rock (一張長鋁箔紙跟一顆石頭). Perhaps all three were there, and each omitted to mention one of them. What could these things signify?
Can anyone confirm that this type of scooter (identified by someone as a Kymco GP) has its battery at the rear of the under-the seat storage compartment, so you have to lift up the seat to get at it?
Could he have had a flat battery, so removed it and tried to recharge it somehow using the aluminium foil? I’ve no idea how that might work, but the video seems to be suggesting something of the sort which I can’t understand. Somehow trying to make an aluminium foil battery to get the engine started? Is that possible?
Or nothing to do with the battery being flat, but could he have been trying to start a fire with the foil and the scooter battery, the way you can with foil and an AA battery? Would that be possible?
The police are reported to have said they didn’t rule out that perhaps the scooter had run out of petrol, he tried to use the battery to start it but failed, and so abandoned it at the roadside. Any plausibility in that?
Or, could it be that the scooter battery died, and after trying and failing to restart the engine by other means, he tried doing it with a push start, running with the scooter down that road, but lost control and crashed it into a rock, which made it completely unusable so he had to dump it? Being big and fit, he could have got quite a lot of speed into an attempted push start, especially if that road slopes downward.
It’s pretty flat… maybe just slightly downhill heading away from the main road, just.
On the helicopter thing. Now that we know there was a definite location where the trail went cold (the scooter accident site), I don’t think it’s a big leap that a helicopter would have been called in to scan the area and coast around the accident site.
Perhaps the wife either embellished the story saying that her family “rented” the copter (which just doesn’t really happen in Taiwan) or maybe she meant that the family “requested” a helicopter survey of the area.
She told us on the phone in 2 different conversations.
First time she said it was about 2 years ago, from what she said I thought one car stopped and 4 guys got out and 5 got in, about a week ago we texted her and she called back, she said 2 cars with 2 guys in each car stopped and 5 guys left. Said it was a parking lot.
She said she told police about it and helicopter.
Not sure if she found footage or police but I have yet to see anything to prove there actually was any.
Did you ask some follow up questions to her?
“Who showed you? Were you able to identify Dave? Why do you think this footage had anything to do with Dave? A parking lot? What parking lot? The scenic area parking lot?”
I would have a billion questions if she told me about seeing footage of Dave after the accident. If true, this would be the only sighting or evidence of Dave being alive after the accident.
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Two more pics as someone asked about the nose fairing.
In this pic the fairing doesn’t look scratched up…I’m thinking maybe only the under tip of the faring came in contact with something which shattered it into a few pieces but left the under area pretty much undamaged.
In this pic you can almost see the wheel contacting the wheel well…would it have been possible to push it? Probably very difficult.
Also I put a line showing where the nose should have been damaged if it had smashed into the wall and bent the forks and wheel back the same distance as the line/front of wheel.
She doesn’t always answer the questions we ask, its hard sometimes to keep asking the same thing if they do not respond to it.
She is my only link and I cannot push too hard in the event we get blocked or deleted from her life.
Treading lightly
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Push her for the copy of the CCTV footage. I don’t think that’s unreasonable considering how important it is.
If she doesn’t have it, ask where you can get a copy. It would be very suspicious if no copies exist.
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The discoloration is on other parts of the rock wall as well. I don’t think it is related to the motorcycle.