Missing Person, David Allan Broderick, “Dave”, Canadian

Something else to consider in a deadly accident scenario is the propensity of police departments in Taiwan to 吃案 or “eat cases.” Having an open manslaughter case on the books is bad for year-end bonuses, so there’s the possibility that what looked like a clear case of vehicular manslaughter was downgraded to a missing person case to avoid a lot of messy paperwork.

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The story about the CCTV is problematic . One assumes the number plates would have been visible somehow and that the cars could be traced.

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You’re right. Just to clarify the above, in the news video they say roughly that, “the bike couldn’t activate / start” and that he was trying to fix it “make it active”. Rather than that the bike had been in a collision. Which I agree to be the most likely scenario given the state of the front forks.

That part of the report made no sense at all. If the scooter is out of gas, which is easy to determine even if the fuel gauge is broken (you can hear it sloshing around by moving the scooter from side to side), why would somebody be fiddling with the battery to try and start it?

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Do we know 100% that the gas was empty? Who said it ran out of fuel?

Also, people are saying the front forks are broken. From that picture, to me, it just looks like it is at a normal angle because the handlebars are turned so it can lean against the wall.

It was in the Chinese language reports. Of course, these obviously aren’t very trustworthy, considering how many basic facts they got wrong.

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Can we get a picture of a normal/new scooter for comparison? It looks like the brunt of the force was on the front tire/wheel, and the plastic was forced forward and to crack. Does that make sense? Many years ago, I ran into a tree stump in the woods. The picture reminds of the way my bike looked, minus a bend in one of the front forks.

Edit: I flew forward. My friends told me I did a full flip. I had a very good Bell helmet on, thank God. Big gash in the front from something.

The forks look fine. Not bent. However, the wheel / tire seem to be too far inward towards the body of the scooter. Hard to tell given just one semi blurry picture from one angle.

This is the place where the scooter was parked in the video. It’s on the old side road of the Suhua, 400-500m away from the main highway. It seems a strange place for a scooter to end up if it had been involved in a traffic accident on that highway. Definitely more a location that someone would pull off, and stop, and contemplate things.

cliff

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You can see from the pic that the force to the front of the bike has also misshapen the frame enough for the plastics to open up all around the column, not just the front.

That visible part likely wouldn’t bend as it is not the weakest point of the forks. What we mean by ‘bent’ is that the fork pitch has been altered by force to the front of the bike. Pushing - as you pointed out - the wheel inwards towards the bike. The actual bend would likely happen further up where the forks are weaker, or where the column meets the underbone frame. As I pointed out above - this would cause the plastics to open up around the column as the underlying shape of the frame has changed.

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So much speculation. The amount of actual evidence here is minimal - especially dealing with media accounts that are already tainted by not being first hand accounts.

Did anyone find out if he had any credit cards from local or overseas banks? Or when he last entered/exited Taiwan (verified by Immigration)? Or local bank accounts?

I made some notations on the image of the scooter to further discuss.

Item A:
The casing can’t be removed by hand. You need tools.
It was either removed with tools or broke off from a collision.

Item B:
The brim of a helmet. This looks like it fell off. Could be from a collision and part of the debris picked up from the road.

Item C:
The wheel / tire appear to be too far back, smashed up into the body of the scooter.

Items D, E and F:
Scratches and dents consistent with a bike falling on its side. Most likely from a collision.

Item G:
That gap in the frame is part of the design, not broken.

Item H:
Someone needs to recharge their laptop!

My opinion is that this scooter was in a collision, picked up off the road and moved here along with the debris from the helmet. From the front wheel being moved inward, I would venture to say it was a head on collision or Dave ran into something or someone. His bike fell to the driver’s right (evident from the angle of the wheel and the bike moving forward, it would swerve to the left and fall to the right), The scratches and dents on the right of the bike also support this idea.

What happened to Dave? Any number of things from the mundane to the wildly far fetched could have happened.

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A good number of scooters already have marks like these from previous dumps and minor fender benders. Hard to tell when they happened.

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Agree with you on that. My scooter has an uncountable number of scratches on it. But these all look the same, as if they happened from the same impact. At least that’s my take on it.

This is also a distinct possibility. After the head-on collision, the scooter landed on its side, causing those scrapes.

Further to the above. Here are two more stills from the video showing damage to the bike.

1 : Altered front wheel pitch from a different angle.

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2: Damage to front plastics. Of note: RHS under nose, shattered front plastics.

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You’re right. Just googled.

True dat. Our vino looks like it’s been run over by a tank. All from sitting in parking.

Also having crashed my fair share of bikes and scooters - scratches from fast crashes where the bike slides tend to be elongated rather than patches. These scratches look like patches of roughly the same size which suggests they may have happened at the same time - but that the bike was not moving fast when it hit the ground. Which could result as Dr_Milker pointed out from the scooter losing its momentum to a head on collision and falling over. Or they are simply similar scratches from another crash and look the same colour because they’re full of dust from the same place?

Back in the game.

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Fuck in rigth!

It looks almost certain to be a collision.
Is it possible the gas tank was empty because the fuel tank cracked or broke and leaked all the fuel out?

I really hate to speculate that he was dumped into the ocean to cover up this accident, but it could have happened.

If it’s true he was captured on film getting into a car, is it possible he was injured from the crash and these people were taking him to a hospital?

Or the more sinister version…they took him and did away with him.

Did he have a run in with gangsters / mobsters? Road rage? Drunk driving?

Yes, that is my lingering question: what has the Canadian Office here in Taiwan said about this matter?

Would it be possible to contact the news crew in question?

1, see if that have the original footage.
2, see if they have extra footage that wasn’t used.
3, get them onside as a possible follow up to the story.

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