Parked Scooter Smashed

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
1

What a Monday morning…excellent weekend, but not a stellar way to start the week.

I went down to the street this morning to discover that someone had plowed into my scooter yesterday afternoon or last night (or this morning) and left it–mangled and with handlebars bent. A passer-by must have propped it up against the wall

Is there anything I can do? (I know, park it in a better place. I thought it was a good place, but it is a very narrow alley. I’ve parked there for the last two years without problems. Perhaps someone clipped it the rear tire and kept on going.)

Should I report it to the police?

Should I ask the neighbors if they heard anything? There is a parking lot across the street, and an attendant is usually there, so maybe that person saw something.

I am just about ready to lick my wounds and chalk this one up to experience (and pay myself for the repairs). I don’t think there is much else I can do, but I thought I’d post this in hopes that someone might have some advice.

Any advice about how to avoid this in the future (besides parking in a better–safer–place)?

I know–at least I wasn’t on the scooter when it happened. Things could be worse. It’s just a sh_tty way to start the week. Thanks for letting me rant.

2

They’d look at you as if you were a lunatic if you bothered them about something like that. Their attitude would be: No one was hurt, there wasn’t any theft or other such deliberate crime committed, so what on earth could it have to do with them? And even if they put on an act of expressing concern and filling out a report form or two, you can bet your bottom dollar that they wouldn’t do a thing about it.

I’m afraid you’ll just have to notch it down to bad luck, and try to find a better protected space for parking your bike in the future. It might be worth having a word with the car park attendant, just in case he saw anything and recognised the perpetrator, but I wouldn’t expect much from him.

In your situation, I’d curse for a while to let off steam, moan to those around me, fork out to get the bike repaired, and that’d be it.

3

It could have been one of your neighbours. Any tell-tale paint marks ? Any of the neigbours cars damaged / disappeared for a few days…?

4

Fee, exact same thing happened to me this year. We parked downstairs and heard a big smash around 2 in the morning. Thought nothing of it. Next morning my wife went down stairs and saw about 4 scooters lying on the ground and suspected drunken youths being responsible. Our scooter had a bent tyre and the chassy (sp) was spent. A little investigating of my own found that some loonatic had smashed his car into them all, wiping them all out, and in his/her possibly drunken rage had managed to swing his car over to the other side of the road and take out an electricity box. My wife insisted that it be reported even know I knew very well that nothing would be done. We found out when we reported it, about 20 hours later, that no one else had reported it and the live wires from the electricity box had been dangling around all day without notice :shock: . The police showed absolute incopetance and a lack of interest. I remember retelling the incident in a thread about the Taiwanese police at a similar time. So some advice, informing the police will waste both your time and god forbid, theirs. Just count yourself luck you weren’t sitting on it at the time and let it go.

5

Sorry to hear about your scooter! What a drag.

Mrs. Flicka did find out who smashed into her scooter one night. It turned out to be a drunk restaurant owner. The police did bust him and she did manage to get compensation. Then later the guy somehow found out where she lived and tried to beat her door down and beat her up. Be prepared for this kind of crap.

6

Hang on Amos. You just said they found live wires dangling from the electricity box. Surely reporting it meant that was sorted out?

I’ve got nothing but praise for the cops here. Sure they do some dumb shit, raiding bars and rounding up everybody is top of the list . . . along with the stupid volume of traffic fines. However, I think these are top down policies and don’t necessarily reflect the competence or otherwise of the local plods.

Misplaced my bike a few months back and they found it within a week. Same story told many times over by friends. I say report the damn thing. A crime should be reported.

HG

7

Fee,

I feel for you. My bike got stolen in CA and I went psycho for awhile… I loved that bicycle :cry: :cry:

at least yours seems salvageable (?). I saw a scooter by ESlite that had been burned to a twist heap of blackened metal. It looked creepily skeletal.

8

Fee.

Another thought. If you live in Taipei you probably have one of those cameras somewhere which may well show the culprits at their devious worse. The cops can access these things.

If you think it may also have scenes of you spliffing up then perhaps forget it.

HG

9

Actually HG, that comment was more advice about reporting a damaged scooter, not the wires. I knew very well when I reported it that they’d get the wires looked at, the scooter thing was just extra paper work that they really didn’t look like they were interested in on filling out.

Amos.

10

Depending on where you are, there are cameras in more and more places these days. I’d report it just to have a legal record that you did. It might make a nice souvenir.
My lane has cameras pointed both directions, but before they were installed I had a new refurbished candy-apple red 50cc Vespa get hit by what I knew was one of the trucks doing construction work there. Really fucked up the paint and dented the body (one-piece, which meant that spot repairs were out of the question).
I thought of shooting all the workmen I saw in the area and letting Buddha sort them out, but didn’t have a gun.
((Go to your borough chief and find out if there was a camera turned on there.))

11

First off, thank a lot to everyone who posted with opinions, comments, and advice. I know that it is “just” a bike, but I was pretty p*ssed off yesterday and I appreciate the support from everyone here, especially those who have been through the same thing.

So, last night, I talked to the guy at the parking lot, but of course, he wasn’t on duty the day before, only works night, hadn’t seen or heard anything. He was actually a nice guy, but I did get the feeling that he would never have told me anything even if he had seen something.

Next, on to the aparment where I had parked the scooter in front of (near the door, not blocking the door.) To be honest, they were my primary suspects (I know–how pathetic–I had been stewing about this all that day at work, working out various theories in my mind–basically wasting time.) After knocking on the door for two minutes (and ringing the doorbell), a voice called out demanding “Who is it? Gan man?” OK, this is going to be great…

The old woman who lives there was too afraid to open the door I guess, so we carried on a conversation through a closed door. She wasn’t too reliable.

At first, I thought I was on the right tack when she confirmed that she had heard someone crash into a scooter. My excitement turned to disappointment, when she answered my question about when, with “Oh, yesterday or the day before or maybe it was Friday.” I tried a few more but then gave up after the woman said confirmed she hadn’t seen anything after she had heard the crash.

I looked for street cameras (surveillance cameras) and asked at the parking lot (shouldn’t they have some) but came up blank.

After all that, I decided to forget about contacting the police. Apologies to those who suggested that I do so, but I just wanted to move on from this.

The guy who fixes my scooter says that I am out a couple thousand. He’ll have it fixed for my by tomorrow. So, not that big of a deal (more just a pain in the *ss) but, yeah, in the big scheme of things, I am just happy that I wasn’t on the bike when it was smashed (as someone posted).

So, thanks again to everyone for posting your thoughts on this topic. I apprecaited all your comments and advice.

Finally, to end this, here are some lines from a movie that kept running through my head whenever I thought about what happened to my bike (not that I would ever advocate violence or anything).

Vincent takes his works out of his case and, as the two
continue to talk, Vince shoots up.

                              LANCE
                   Still got your Malibu?

                              VINCENT
                   You know what some fucker did to it
                   the other day?

                              LANCE
                   What?

                              VINCENT
                   Fuckin' keyed it.

                              LANCE
                   Oh man, that's fucked up.

                              VINCENT
                   Tell me about it.  I had the
                   goddamn thing in storage three
                   years.  It's out five fuckin' days
                   -- five days, and some dickless
                   piece of shit fucks with it.

                              LANCE
                   They should be fuckin' killed.  No
                   trial, no jury, straight to
                   execution.

    As he cooks his heroin --

                              VINCENT
                   [b]I just wish I caught 'em doin' it[/b],
                   ya know?  Oh man, I'd give anything
                   to catch 'em doin' it.  [b]It'a been
                   worth his doin' it, if I coulda
                   just caught 'em, [/b]you know what I
                   mean?

                              LANCE
                   It's chicken shit.  You don't fuck
                   another man's vehicle.

(“Pulp Fiction”)