Of course, one could always ask rhetorically: why are some foreign licenses not exchangeable for local ones? The answer is more political than a matter of driving safety.
Sure, I can understand that lack of enforcement does in a way encourage people to disobey the road rules. Afterall, if the police don’t even care about you breaking the law then why should you! It does come down to personal conscience I suppose. Not so much that we should be ashamed of breaking laws here that we wouldn’t break back home, but the concerns about the consequences on others of us not doing so. In the case of an unlicenced and uninsured driver/rider of an unregistered vehicle injuring someone else in an accident, I am not sure that the other person would be able to be easily compensated for their injuries. Add to this the fact the driver at fault may have run a red light and that adds insult to injury.
I was really calling into question the basis for the OP’s complaint about the ticket, considering that by his own admission he:
a) was unlicenced
b) ran a red light
which is exactly what he was ticketted for. So I don’t really understand the complaint.
If it were not necessary for me to swerve out of another driver’s way I would not have crossed the barrier at the traffic light. Once I crossed the barrier, I did not see my way clear to do the same or obstruct the traffic.
The plot thickens. Just a few minutes ago I drove through a full-blown traffic road block. I though of turning back , but that would just have caused suspicion so I continued. I was lucky. That was the second one today. The first one was visible from a distance so it was easy to evade the cops.
I used to be very pedantic about the rules of the road, but life has taught me that common sense comes first. If you can avert an accident (and save lives and money) by using common sense instead of doing what the rules say, then by all means, do it. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
The funny thing about getting busted for turning right on red…which I have been ticketed for a few times…is that if you just went straight through the red light, they wouldn’t bother with you. :loco:
Oh, and speaking of people avoiding the cops. I was going into the under ground tunnel which goes under the Chung-Li train station. It’s a tunnel for bikes only… and there is just room enough for bikes to travel one by one in it. Anyway, I was entering the tunnel and two guys on a 50cc scooter come riding out of it the wrong way…if I had entered a few seconds sooner we would have hit head on. When I get to the opposite side of the tunnel I see cops busting people for helmets.
Close to any road block, you’ll always find guys almost making u-turns in full sight of the cops. They don’t do street chases any more it seems.
There are far worse traffic volations.
Yep, so only the innocent riders with nothing to fear get stopped and harrassed by incompetent idiots in a uniform.
I still don’t get it.
From my understanding of your story, you approached an intersection, and just as you got to the intersection another bike was reversing back into the intersection as he was trying to avoid the police who were around the corner waiting for people who turn right on the red.
If the light was green when that other guy went through the intersection before you, then I can’t see why he would stop and reverse back. I assume that he had run the red light but was fortunate enough to have seen the cops and reversed back.
So by the time you came along, the light must have been red for a while. If that is correct, then the only reason that you had to take evasive action is because you were entering the intersection at speed. An intersection that must have had a red light some time before you entered it.
Do you have a habit of turning right on the red? How many times had you done it before you got caught? Had you ever turned on red at that intersection before and got away with it?
Also, you seem to indicate that you are riding again now. I am curious. Did you pay the fines and get your blue registration card back, or are you riding without a licence and registration now?
I certainly agree with Mordeth about the fact that the police do seem to get soft targets. Running a red light is wrong, no matter which direction you go in, but I certainly agree that someone going directly through the intersection should be stopped as well.
Is it feasible to actually chase a motorcycle or scooter in city traffic? I assume that the reason that police may not do many vehicle to vehicle stops is due the fact that they cannot easily effect this type of stop.