This was simply a case of my stereo being louder than my radar detector…
Also, the picture was sent to my in-laws place, so I haven’t seen it yet. What I want to know is this: I have a aftermarket bullbar/trailer hitch that covers my plate nicely…How the hell did they get my photo?
Might have to remount it… 
In the U.S., they do indeed use cameras for traffic violations.
HOWEVER–
In the U.S., the ticket is issued to the driver, not the car. The photograph has to not only show that it’s your car, but also clearly show that it’s you driving.
This means that if you can prove to the judge that it isn’t you driving the car, then the ticket is voided.
Also–
Other than the monetary fine, is there any other reason to avoid getting tickets in Taiwan? In the U.S., you can get your license suspended if you get too many. In addition, your driving record is tied to your insurance rates. What’s the deal in Taiwan?
[quote=“Dahudze”]
Also–
Other than the monetary fine, is there any other reason to avoid getting tickets in Taiwan? In the U.S., you can get your license suspended if you get too many. In addition, your driving record is tied to your insurance rates. What’s the deal in Taiwan?[/quote]
Eventually they will take away the license plate from your scooter (or car I imagine). I know this because I have a few friends that have been driving around without license plates for years. 
There are traffic rules here?!?!?
Coulda’ fooled me.
Martin in LuChou
[quote]I have a aftermarket bullbar/trailer hitch that covers my plate nicely…How the hell did they get my photo?
[/quote]
I was batting up the 3 at around 160 on Sunday morning and at the last minute saw a camera mounted on a sign scaffold FACING THE ONCOMING TRAFFIC. Don’t know if I got snapped or not, but it was NOT one of those traffic control/monitoring cameras – it was definitely a speeding one. Do they have the tech to get cars coming towards the camera? Maybe that’s what got you?
[quote=“sandman”][quote=“Dangermouse”][quote]None at all where I’m from either. They’re nothing but traffic wardens in fast cars collecting fines.
[/quote]
Wanker. I was a cop. I think you better come down to the station. Your knicked.[/quote]
My uncle was the top cop up in the northeast of Scotland for several years. The “traffic wardens in fast cars” jibe was a direct quote from him. 
Mind you, he’d just been done for speeding at the time.[/quote]
That’s funny ! My uncle was a police driving instructor for his entire career of 30-odd years. His quote was “a lot of well-fed men with nothing to do (and all day to do it)”. He also did the Isle of Man TT four times. How about that. A bike racer turned traffic cop. Lunatic in charge of the asylum.
I did it twice in the late 70s. A good number of the competitors were traffic cops and they ALL left me sucking on their exhausts. I didn’t care though – I was riding my dad’s 1952 Vincent and they weren’t!
[quote=“sandman”][quote]I have a aftermarket bullbar/trailer hitch that covers my plate nicely…How the hell did they get my photo?
[/quote]
I was batting up the 3 at around 160 on Sunday morning and at the last minute saw a camera mounted on a sign scaffold FACING THE ONCOMING TRAFFIC. Don’t know if I got snapped or not, but it was NOT one of those traffic control/monitoring cameras – it was definitely a speeding one. Do they have the tech to get cars coming towards the camera? Maybe that’s what got you?[/quote]
Sandman, front facing cameras have been around for quite some time, got pulled on one back in early 2001, nothing new.
[quote=“Traveller”][quote=“sandman”][quote]I have a aftermarket bullbar/trailer hitch that covers my plate nicely…How the hell did they get my photo?
[/quote]
I was batting up the 3 at around 160 on Sunday morning and at the last minute saw a camera mounted on a sign scaffold FACING THE ONCOMING TRAFFIC. Don’t know if I got snapped or not, but it was NOT one of those traffic control/monitoring cameras – it was definitely a speeding one. Do they have the tech to get cars coming towards the camera? Maybe that’s what got you?[/quote]
Sandman, front facing cameras have been around for quite some time, got pulled on one back in early 2001, nothing new.[/quote]
In that case … Oh fuck! :s
Yeah, got a few picture postcards featuring the front of my car. At least I looked like I was having fun.
What sucks most about getting a ticket in the mail, dated 14 days ago, shot from a new camera on a road I travel every day, is not knowing whether there are 13 more pics on their way, one for every day since then.
Some years back I had my cars picture taken because I was wrong ‘parked’ … I made a whole fuss (in English) about it with the cop and asked him if I needed to be on the picture … he wrote a fine but never heard about it … :discodance:
I know. In the U.K. they would simply cancel the license instead of giving out fines. This tells me one thing though. Taiwan doesn’t consider the infringements at all dangerous and only creates them as a form on revenue. They really need to stop taking snap shots and start taking action.
I’m just wondering how many dangerous lane switchers, dangerous vehicles, mad bus drivers and helmet less children they may have stopped if they hadn’t been so damn busy trying to prevent scooters from using the only safe lane to overtake buses. Stoopidheads!
with the amount of not used flash poles now (due to not being accurate) they seem to test the “garbage bin camera”.
One was put-up on Xinhai Rd a few weeks back -
You can find an example of this GATSO model included the green trasher:
flitsservice.nl/techniek/htm … /gatso.htm
Most of the scooter accidents I’ve seen were in the middle of major roads. All too often, some dumbass decides to make a left-turn at a busy intersection and either gets nailed from behind or from the front by someone who didn’t see him until it was too late. USE THE DAMN WHITE BOX, PEOPLE!
Yes, bus drivers and taxi drivers are idiots, but it’s the scooters that usually cause their own demise. Some do this by careless riding(swerving or ignoring their mirrors and signals) and others do this by ignoring the larger vehicles until it’s too late.
In theory, I’m sure we’d all like to believe that on the road, we are all equal in rights and importance, regardless of the size of our own respective vehicles. In Taiwan, in practice, this just isn’t so, and the sooner people(foreign and local) stop crying and complaining about it and just learn to ADAPT, the sooner we’ll all feel just a little safer on the roads.
The roads are congested. If some monkey on a scooter decides he wants to swerve in front of you, how is the driver of the car supposed to predict this? What if the car driver is accelerating at the same time as the monkey decides to cut him off? Sadly, in Taiwan, the resulting death of said monkey would be blamed on the car driver, even though it should really be the monkey’s family who has to pay to repair the damage caused to the car driver’s bloodied bumper.
I’m getting off-topic here. About the fines, I’m personally glad that they’re trying to enforce a few of the rules around here, regardless of their obvious reasons for doing so(budget cutbacks and inflating costs related to fuel and other things). I’ve had a couple of speeding tickets myself… can’t blame them for catching me when I know that I’m breaking the law!
The one thing I don’t like about the fines is how some things such as speeding tickets are so much more than the tickets you get for riding without a helmet. Having a kid on a motorcycle without any head gear should cost AT LEAST double what a speeding ticket does, but no, it’s only 500NT or something… in practice it’s nothing because the cops don’t seem to give a damn about that law yet… likely because a 500NT fine isn’t worth the trouble to them.
[quote=“twocs”]Now I know what the yellow Chinese characters mean on the left lane of Nanjing Road (and countless other roads around Taipei). They mean, “Don’t drive here on a scooter,” and are enforced by cops with zoom lenses.
I feel like traffic tickets in Taiwan are outrageously high. It will set you back NT$5300 for turning right at a red light. I don’t know what it costs in America now, but it seems like the traffic tickets in Taiwan would really be difficult for a family to afford. I see people breaking the laws all the time, so I don’t suppose the tickets are working.[/quote]
I got pulled over at the end of last year for turning from Keelung Rd into ChungHsiao East Rd. There was a cop waiting for me. I only went as I saw another guy go, so I thought safety in numbers and ha, we both got pulled over. But the fine was only NT$600 and he printed it out on his little computer thingy right on the spot and I had 3 weeks to go pay it.
I got a photo in the mail once though which was taken on ChungHsiao E Rd Sec 5 back in about 2000. I took my NSR into a shop there as it was having problems with the RC valve. The bike shop guy got his picture taken doing more than double the speed limit while testing my bike and the fine back then was NT$1600. Not a great deal and they paid for it.
They have been taking photos for as long as I can remember in the 10 years I have been here. Before I started riding, I lived very convenient to work and Chinese school so I used to walk around heaps. I used to see stacks of those cameras cops. I used to laugh to myself as I remembered the TV commercial in Australia saying every police car is a speed camera as they have a speed camera fitted to the front of the police car, but I used to joking think Taiwan isn’t that advanced yet to have speed cameras fitted to their police scooters…
My work mate got a pick a couple of weeks ago from the intersection of HsinSheng S. Rd and Hoping E. Rd. Can’t remember how much he said the fine was.
Dont forget that the fines can quadruple if unpaid by a certain time. They double by a certain time, then triple then quadruple.