Saw a real nasty accident yesterday morn on my way to work.
It was the old car in line up behind scooter decides when the light changes to drive into oncoming traffic and pull a fast right hand turn in front of the scooter and cut them off.
Well the scooter was not turning in fact she was driving straight through the intersection, and the car smoked her full on.
The guy in the car drove through the intersection and stopped and got out of his car.
I was looking at him and the expression on his face was like, “fuck! how much is this going to cost me?”
He stomps over to the lady laying in the middle of the road, who is screaming and crying, and he grabs her by one arm and drags her violently over to the sidewalk, dumps her there. half on the sidewalk and half on the road, gets in his car and drives away.
I waited for the ambulance to show up and gave the cop the Black Merc license #. When I told him it was a black merc he said, “oh” and seemed to lose interest.
uh-oh…here goes another thread about “Taiwan’s finest” bashing…please bash-on my friends…On my way to work yesterday, I saw some of their goons riding the bigger patrol bikes going the opposite direction, they have BMW R1150RTs, and the the cop rider ran a very simple corner very wide into the oncoming lane, and of course, he came up face to fact with a car, and I was driving that car! …
I guess that getting his plates wouldn’t serve me anything good, would it?
My advice: Give the license plate number to the lady and offer her to be a witness, if she needs one. As you were not involved in the accident it’s not up to you to play the hero. This still can be very dangerous in Taiwan. If the guy was wearing a black suit but without necktie and shirt, he is probably some sort of mafia guy. Black Mercedes’ (especially large displacement E-class and S-class) and BMW 5 series (not necessarily black but preferred) are usually the bad guys’ cars. Once a cap driver, who was living in the same building as I did, told me that 3 series BMWs are the cars of spoiled children, 7 series BMWs are powerful but sporty bosses and 5-series BMW - you guess it - are the for the bad guys.
[quote=“hm”]5-series BMW - you guess it - are the for the bad guys.[/quote]That was then, this is now. These days a 520 or 525 is probably driven by some overweight putz who owns a small business. A 530 or 540 however… that’s another story.
The advice on giving the plate number to the vic and offering your testimony is spot on however. Without a witness, even if they catch this guy, it’s his word against the vic’s that he turned in front of oncoming traffic or before the filter arrow came on. The cops are usually sympathetic to the injured party, but with no evidence…
I had my first accident a week ago driving in Taipei since 9 months now.
Knowing that a green or red light doesn’t mean anything here, I always look left and right before crossing when it is green for me.
Same that morning, but the speed generated from the guy on his bike was too fast to see him coming out of a small lane.
He slide on the ground hit his bike against my car and seemed to be pretty burned and shaved on his arm and hands. Big surprise for him to see a foreigner stepping out of a nice car. He was around 20
This didn’t happen to me, but a friend of a friend. Happened yesterday.
Scooter gets hit by car. Nobody does anything. Foreign guy stops to see if he can help injured person. Blue truck runs over the body while foreign guy watches.
[quote]I insisted to call the cops and an ambulance, but he preferred to drive away…
To be sure, I wrote down his license plate, but what if he decides to sue me later on? [/quote]
He might well do that. He could have ridden off to a hospital and got some accident photos taken. He has six months I think in which to sue. Did he get your plate number?
[quote=“sandman”][quote]I insisted to call the cops and an ambulance, but he preferred to drive away…
To be sure, I wrote down his license plate, but what if he decides to sue me later on? [/quote]
He might well do that. He could have ridden off to a hospital and got some accident photos taken. He has six months I think in which to sue. Did he get your plate number?[/quote]
He for sure did not wrote it down, but no idea if he looked at it.
It only could take one of his mates to say “try to get the money, he is foreigner anyway” to find me in a shitty position. Anyway, I went to court a few times. I know the drill
It might be worth making a pre-emptive strike. Go to the cops and report him for slamming into your car and then running. They’ll try to fob you off with excuses for not doing the paperwork, but insist on getting a report in writing. Lie and say you think he might have been injured if that’s what it takes. Maybe you can tell them your insurance company wants a police report before they’ll pay out. If and when he does reappear you’ll be in a better position for having your side of the story on record already. He left the scene of an accident without giving you his details, it doesn’t look good.
Police in Taiwan are absolutely useless. Not to mention incompetent. (I believe I’ve spelled that wrong…go English teacher!)
I had an accident myself not too many months ago in which an extremely bright lady decided it would be fun to pull out of the scooter lane and into the car lane without first checking or signalling and smacked into the side of my car as I was passing by her. Of course, down she went. Cops were called and half-a-frigging-hour (honestly…I timed it…) later a guy showed up. He took her statement and sent her off to the hospital to get checked out. Since I don’t speak much Chinese, my wife had to come to help me out. First thing he does with me is give me the ole breathalizer. Then he started taking my statement and half way through, walked away to do something else! When we eventually got the cop-shop, he gave me another frigging breathalizer! Good thing I didn’t use mouthwash…
Anyway, the end result was, because the impact mark was in the middle of my car, we were both equally to blame…despite scooter-lady making an illegal lane change!!
Another story; one night I was waiting to make a left-hand turn at an intersection to go home and there was a cop car behind me. As the lights changed, one of the infamous blue trucks completely smoked a couple on the scooter in the opposite direction lanes. I made my turn and the cop followed right behind me! Despite the fact that the blue truck hit the scooter when it was right beside the bloody cop! I had to drive past the local police station on my way home and the cop followed right behind me the whole way and turned into the station…
It meant I payed for her bill at the hospital and got dick-all in return.
Oh, here’s another story: Again, waiting at an intersection to make a turn, this time the intersection was right in front of the police station (coincedentally, the same station that the cop in the last story was headed to…) when some bright individual with his gf on the backend of his scooter decides to run the red and smacks into a guy going through on the green…the guy gets hit so hard he does a cartwheel in the air and lands on his head…right in front of the police station. And did any cop come out to see what the commotion was about…hell no. They were all busy inside sipping tea and playing computer games (I’ve actually seen them FPS games on the computers in the station while on-duty…my father-in-law is chummy chummy with them and took me around for a visit once)
Oh yeah, almost forgot, scooter-lady who hit me didn’t have her ownership with her and still didn’t get in any shit!!
I saw an accident this morning. Not very serious but mordibly amusing.
I am sitting at the lights on the Xinyi Rd/Songde Rd intersection in Taipei. I can hear an ambulance siren, and idly muse that people here never seem to yield to ambulances and one day I am going to see an accident involving one.
The ambulance pulls into sight and crosses the intersection against the red light. Of course there is some Toyota rubbish which almost hits it but pulls up in time… then the Scooter King on his Majesty rushes through… there’s that crunching sound, and he’s gone down.
The scooter is on his left leg, and I watch in amazement as his levers the bike off himself with the other leg. Presumably he wasn’t too badly hurt.
Of course after that is the ironic spectacle of the parameds getting out of the ambulance to check him out. I’m just glad I was the soon-to-be-stiff in the back.
how’s that?.. surely your car was scratched/damaged in some way?.. the old bag should cough up 50% of your repair bill…
you should go to the cops and announce that you’ve just taken the car to a mechanic and they’ve discovered that in the accident the silly cow totally destroyed your super charged V-8 engine and you’d like her to pay for half the cost of a new one…
And I’d like to repeat that just because the police tell you to pay something…it in no way, shape, or form…means that you must. Police suggestions on who pays who…are just suggestions…even if they bark them out as commands. If you felt you shouldn’t have paid for her hospital bills…you should have just said “Sorry, but no.” .
…
:help:
Without a witness, even if they catch this guy, it’s his word against the vic’s that he turned in front of oncoming traffic or before the filter arrow came on. The cops are usually sympathetic to the injured party, but with no evidence…
