Has anyone else noticed an increase in people getting of their scooters and pushing them along sidewalks and across intersections on the pedestrian crossings???
I have noticed this in the area I frequent from the Kuangfu S Rd and RenAi Intersection, then along Keelung Rd up to Hoping E Rd and then up Hoping until Roosevelt Rd…
I thought it was quite strange when I first saw it, but it is becoming more and more frequent…
I don’t know whether it’s more frequent now, but you can save a lot of time by momentarily becoming and crossing with the other pedestrians instead of sitting through up to two red lights just to make a stupid turn. If you’re planning on a two-point turn at an intersection but get caught at the red before making it to the two-point-turn box, you’ve got a LOOOOONG wait, once for the red, then again in the two-point-turn box. If instead you walk the bike to the two-point-turn box as a pedestrian, you’ve cut that in half. You can also accomplish U-turns this way, safely and legally, where they’re otherwise forbidden.
You can be ticketed if you ride the scooter in the zebra crossing, but once you get off and walk your scooter, you’ve effectively become a pedestrian and the cops can’t ticket you.
Yup. I do it sometimes if wishing to make U turns at red lights. Just hop off and wheel it over the zebra to turn. Saves a good few minutes sometimes when I’m in a hurry.
Its good for some long wait right turns too. I have one just before my home. I sometimes just kill it and instead wheel it down the pavement to its parking spot. Of course I’ll only do it if pedestrians are few enough though.
All true, but I am also talking about people getting off and walking along sidewalks to park their scooters. I have just seemed to have noticed it a lot recently, where as probably a month ago I hadn’t seen it before… A lot safer for us pedestrians, but I just thought it a little weird…
I must say that I have been noticing slow improvements in traffic recently. Well at least in and around Taipei.
I have noticed a few more people using indicators and also offering way to others indicating. I have noticed the pushing thing, I wish it could be a majority however. Where I live in Shilin an awful lot of people still use the footpaths for riding when the lights are red, some travel quite quickly too. I was always quite surprised that still in this area the practice is quite common.
The real reason ‘intersection pushing’ is necessary is that motorcycle riders are treated as second class citizens here (unless you’re 500cc or above). Anywhere else in the world, and a motorbike has the same rights as cars (those inferior, gas guzzling, environmentally unfriendly things which take up a lot of space and have a huge carbon footprint). We are not allowed to use the outside lane and turn left at a red light, because… well, we might fall off or something…and anyway, people riding motorcycles are a pain in the ass, aren’t they? etc. etc. The basic edict seems to be;
Consider for a moment those older and less coordinated riders you see out there, the ones who think dragging their slipper-clad feet down the road at 40kph gives them better balance. How about the ones wobbling around with four kids on board? Would you want to put them into the mix of fast-moving vehicles, cars and trucks? The result would be carnage.
Basic roadcraft among scooter users needs a massive upgrade before it should even be considered to remove the restriction to the slow vehicle lane.
← on motorcycles for over 30 years