The solution could be …
The analog system is not perfect but at the moment they are changing to digital … black box kind of device
And of course they should be combined with a tough regulation on driving/working hours … because lots of accidents happen due to fatigued drivers and carelessness …
Make amphetamines available at gas station, like in Thailand. Thai bus / truck drivers don’t fall asleep. They just run away after the crash, like they just have to keep going as fast as possible even though the vehicle can’t move.
Put it this way, just about every car that’s been the hands of a used car dealer here has had it’s odometer reset. How long do you think it would take the bus companies or their drivers to hack a tachograph, analog or digital, and record falsified information on it. I’d be willing to bet it would be well under a month.
[quote]Make amphetamines available at gas station, like in Thailand. Thai bus / truck drivers don’t fall asleep. They just run away after the crash, like they just have to keep going as fast as possible even though the vehicle can’t move.[/quote]Who says they aren’t already doing methamphetamine? 
All hopped up on Come Best, more like it.
Yea, one solution is to reduce work hour because Taiwan has one of the longest work hour in the world. But then bosses are usually too greedy to let people get more time off… I am not sure if regulations will help.
How about useful traffic cops who pull buses over for speeding and other traffic violations?
For some unknown reason, buses usually seem to just get a pass from the cops. They also don’t seem to be subject to emitions regulations either.
I wonder how would Taiwanese react if they were to (slowly) raise the prices of things so that we get better quality and better pay/treatment for employees? You know like Europe…
They can’t from my understanding. Every thing is fixed, fuel prices, rates, wages, if it was possible it would of been tried or done. They have to cut corners where possible to make money. Read “The Other Path” it goes into more detail about how this comes into effect by example in Peru.
Venezuela has much the same problem. Students need transportation but bus drivers have to accept half the normal rate form students, so when students are going to class, bus drivers eat breakfast. Everyone agrees it is a problem, but no one is making the hard right decisions to address it. Especially odd when you consider what you go through to get a license there.
[quote]
Put it this way, just about every car that’s been the hands of a used car dealer here has had it’s odometer reset. How long do you think it would take the bus companies or their drivers to hack a tachograph, analog or digital, and record falsified information on it. I’d be willing to bet it would be well under a month.[/quote]
They have been hacked in Europe … just to be caught by specially trained police … and than had to pay a huge fine …
Believe me, everything has been tried in Europe to circumvent the tachograph … resulting in temporary success only …
They already started tempering with digital ones … but sooner or later they get caught … nothing is fail proof … because there is always this little detail they forget about …
In Europe, some bus and truck drivers used to drive with double tachodisks, standing by it that the other driver just left at the gas station to return home … :eh: right, like police kept believing that story …
It’s ultimately going to be about enforcement. There are a billion things that are illegal in this country, but what’s the point in adding another rule or regulation if it’s not enforced?
Ultimately, the Taiwanese people are going to have to decide upon these things. They’re going to have to decide whether they want quality or cheapness. If they really do want quality, then they’re going to have to pay more because they’re going to have to demand real accountability and the enforcement of regulations. I suspect they largely only look at price, so quality will improve very slowly, if at all. This isn’t something any outsider can impose upon them, or even suggest to them. I see this in microcosm at my current job. They will do what they will do, regardless of whether our suggestions are great or terrible. I don’t believe people here are that dumb, I believe all the crazy shit in this country is a conscious and arrogant choice.
It’s probably because they’re Taoist/Buddhist, come what comes, next time better luck … hey! let’s burn some more ghost money …
[quote=“Belgian Pie”]The solution could be …
[/quote]
Wrong.
The solution could be the Chinese tachograph …
This simply boils down to punishment. Even if locals are afraid of certain bus lines, they are anxious to return home or find out later that their tour is using a not so good bus company. What to do? On TV we have seen reports over and over again about bus companies falsifying records and seen the guys outside bus inspection centers running illegal business of providing services to beat the system.
Without big fines applied consistently this and other problems will not change. Just like recent article below…NT60,000 is a “severe penalty” for major pollution issue?
Non-professional companies must be fined out of business. Other professional companies take their place to capture the market share. Too many non-professional companies chasing limited customers on this small island leads to difficulty for company to gain foothold in market at slightly higher price with better service. I don’t worry that a smaller amount of larger companies will get any possibly “monopoly” for specific products/services.
Then the unemployed workers at non-professional companies will have to switch employers and get actual safety training.
[i]
[color=#008080]
Waste water pollution problem in Changhua County greatly improved
Taipei, Oct. 20 (CNA) The quality of the irrigation water in Changhua County has been greatly improved since regular inspections of factory wastewater and severe penalties imposed by the authorities have forced electro-plating factories in the region to address their water pollution problems, according to an official of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA).
Chiang Chu-nung, an EPA inspector in central Taiwan, said that in recent years the EPA has conducted frequent inspections on the over 100 electro-plating factories in the county’s coastal region, detecting heavy metals such as cadmium, chromium, nickel, zinc and copper in their wastewater.
Rice paddies and oyster farms polluted by heavy metals from factory wastewater caused major losses to the agricultural sector several years ago when consumers panicked over cadmium-contaminated rice and “green oysters” from the area.
Chiang said, however, that between 2004 and 2008, the qualification rate of irrigation water in the region rose from 33 percent to 73 percent.
Any factory reported to be violating the anti-water pollution regulations will be fined NT$60,000, and if no improvement is made within a certain period, will be fined another NT$60,000, according to Chiang.[/i][/color]
I think we can all come up with a thousand examples where they say they want quality, but when it comes time to pay, they go straight for option cheap. They know that by using the cheapest bus service they are pushing sloppy safety standards. There are always the standard excuses / ‘rationalizations’…
Cheap is good enough.
There won’t be an accident, I’m lucky.
There won’t be an accident, I went to the temple.
Even if there is an accident, I won’t get hurt because I’m lucky and I went to the temple.
How about they force the management to ride in the front seats of one of their own buses twice a week, from say, Taipei to Kaohsiung. I wonder how cavalier they’d be about safety then.
Nah, they’d have their own personal driver for that, and make sure he was properly rested, hydrated, trained and family held as hostages. I really don’t see any solution except for turning all the bus companies over to the Japanese.
FTFY
FTFY[/quote]
Yes well, I’m sure the Americans are now quietly rueful of the decision to snatch Taiwan from the Japanese in 1945.
As far as mountain roads and accidents are concerned it isn’t the speed of the buses but the sizes. They need to use smaller buses. Thus when an accident occurs there will be fewer people killed.
Just trying to think outside the box. 
[quote=“Bubba 2 Guns”]As far as mountain roads and accidents are concerned it isn’t the speed of the buses but the sizes. They need to use smaller buses. Thus when an accident occurs there will be fewer people killed.
Just trying to think outside the box. [/quote]
Not that wide of the mark. Why do they need full size buses for ?16 people?
I think we can all come up with a thousand examples where they say they want quality, but when it comes time to pay, they go straight for option cheap. They know that by using the cheapest bus service they are pushing sloppy safety standards. There are always the standard excuses / ‘rationalizations’…
Cheap is good enough.
There won’t be an accident, I’m lucky.
There won’t be an accident, I went to the temple.
Even if there is an accident, I won’t get hurt because I’m lucky and I went to the temple.
How about they force the management to ride in the front seats of one of their own buses twice a week, from say, Taipei to Kaohsiung. I wonder how cavalier they’d be about safety then.
Nah, they’d have their own personal driver for that, and make sure he was properly rested, hydrated, trained and family held as hostages. I really don’t see any solution except for turning all the bus companies over to the Japanese.[/quote]
Before coming to Taiwan, I thought that living in a completely de-regulated society was an ultimate goal. I’m not so certain anymore. I’m not sure if it’s a cultural thing or if people, when left entirely to their own devices, will go feral. I’m quite sceptical about whether things will ever improve markedly in this country, but then, I’ve only been here a few years. Maybe things have changed a lot, but I wonder whether that was a top down or bottom up approach.
[quote]I thought that living in a completely de-regulated society was an ultimate goal.[/quote]GiT, you don’t live in a deregulated society in Taiwan, everything is regulated and a lot of it is regulated heavily, it’s just that unlike Venezuela, the laws aren’t really enforced and there has never been a really strong Caudillo(sp?) to really mess everything up.
I think people need to realize that there is a world of difference between deregulated(i.e. Somalia or Hong Kong being the best examples) and regulated but not enforced(like Taiwan is) or regulated and heavily enforced(like Venezuela).
Bus companies are highly regulated, it’s just that there is no enforcement.