Riding a Scooter in Taiwan, a few words of caution

Life Cars & Motorcycles
1

Ok so here’s the story, I’m riding my girlfriends scooter to go and eat at a restaurant. We’re on a quiet road looking for a place to park, so I’m on the very far right hand side of the road, riding really slowly, maybe 10-20 kmh. It’s quiet, and I’ve left a space large enough for a bus to go around me. I thought I saw a space so I stopped my bike to go into it, at this point there is no one behind me, or close to me. About ten seconds after I stopped, a girl who was easily far enough behind me to see me stopping almost crashed into the back of my bike and gave me a really evil look. To be honest I think she wanted to swear at me.

I personally don’t think I did anything dangerous, I was already crawling along, and she was way behind me in the first place. So my question is, can people really not read the road here. Maybe think, “there’s a guy crawling along on the Right hand side, I’ll just around him”, or “they look like his break lights, I think he’s slowing down, or stopping”. My girlfriend said if I’d indicated that would have helped, but honestly how? If she can’t see break lights, or even see the massive space I’ve left for her to ride around me on the left, what good would an indicator do? Apparently that almost accident was my fault too.

Another time I was turning left. I moved over to center line, indicated, and stopped (because there was oncoming traffic). As I went to turn Left somebody overtook me ON THE LEFT. Like hello? Again, there’s a huge space on my right, and I’m indicating that I want to go left. Are people really that stupid? These aren’t things that I would ever experience in the UK, which is why I find it incredibly frustrating to ride a scooter here.

So I guess the point of this is, if you come from a “western” country and you want to try riding a scooter here, be extremely careful. If you are changing direction at all, always, always check your mirrors. People here don’t look ahead, or read the road, or even seem to have any common sense, at least if they do they certainly don’t use it. For instance if a bus is pulling out from a bus stop DO NOT STOP. In the UK, stopping to let a bus pull out is actually a legal requirement, and a part of the highway code. Here somebody will definitely crash into you. Also be doubly careful driving at night, some people don’t even turn their lights on. Never go above 50 kmh, if you drive at 60+ not only do you increase your chances of crashing dramatically, but if you do crash you will almost certainly be hospitalised, if not killed.

Anyone else have any thoughts they’d like to share about this, please tell me. Cheers.

2

Ummm, sure.

  1. You’re a foreigner, it’s always your fault.
  2. Driving a scooter here is inherently dangerous. It doesn’t matter how good you are. I have countless friends (local and foreign) who’ve been hit from behind, etc. And guess what! See No. 1.
  3. Nothing you mention is out of the ordinary, in fact, it’s all quite normal here.
  4. If those little things bother you, park it. That’s what I did. Driving here exploded my blood pressure and now I’m a happy bus/mrt rider. Personally, and this is just my opinion, anyone who drives a scooter here is playing with fire. Not worth the risk, IMO.
3

To be fair, my girlfriend has had 3 accidents, and even had her foot broken. She’s got a big scar to prove it. But I agree with you, there are some complete nutters who ride scooters here. Some people ride at a criminally high speed, and just weave in and out of traffic. But to be honest, walking isn’t really safer where I live. I live in Donghai, and there’s no pavement. One time some guy was reversing his car and nearly hit me and my girlfriend, so I went over and knocked on his back window. The guy got out and looked like he wanted to punch me.

Also my girlfriend has a friend who is in a comma because she got hit (while walking) by someone on a scooter.

4

Oh and in response to number 1. My girlfriend says foreigners who ride scooters here usually don’t have a license, hence any accidents that happen, regardless of circumstance, it’s the foreigners fault, because they shouldn’t be riding a scooter in the first place.

5

I can offer only 3 words :

DONT DO IT !

6

Same thing happened to me but the guy actually knocked me over - I was on the center divide line, had indicated my intentions with my blinker with PLENTY of time, and he crossed the line into oncoming traffic to go around me just as I was taking my turn. As SY31 said, all of this is par for the course, completely normal here in Taiwan. And, same with SY31, I am a happy train commuter now, I ride my scooter once a week to buy groceries, and my life has improved a hundred fold. I used to be angry after every ride, but stepping off the train and crossing the street to work is heavenly, I’m far far happier.

I DO believe that there is something different with people’s spacial awareness here. Is it genetic or cultural? I have no idea, and to be honest with you I fought against the idea for a long time (Why? Because it’s RACIST!!! My California upbringing demands that I don’t blame things on race. It can’t be that they’re bad drivers because of their RACE! It must be…that the rules of the road are different here, because of the scooters, so people can’t drive by the same rules as we do back home. Or, they started out on scooters which require a different driving strategy, and then apply those strategies to full sized cars which causes mayhem…)but in the end, I had to accept it. People do NOT seem to plan their moves out ahead of time, they don’t seem to gage that if that vehicle continues at that speed and trajectory and I continue at my speed and trajectory, we will collide…NOPE. They don’t seem to like playing those guessing games so they just wait till the last second to decide what to do in a given situation. And why am I saying they they they? It should be we we we because I am one of them, I have adapted. I think my driving (and heck, even walking) style will no longer fit at home. Here, I know the others aren’t planning moves out ahead of time, there isn’t this unspoken knowledge that ‘if I keep moving at my speed and trajectory and you keep moving at your speed and trajectory we will be just fine so we will both continue’ instead they will always ALWAYS always do something that makes it hard to miss them, so I’ve adapted. When in Rome…
I have dedicated an inordinate amount of time analyzing the driving here. And I’ve noticed this ‘non-pre-planning’ also applies to walking. And yet, people here don’t seem to bump into each other too much. So they must have an unconscious system that works about as well (for walking) as what I’m used to back home, but when you speed everything up a bit (driving) it causes a lot of close calls. However, close calls here don’t inspire so much as a gasp.

Anyways, best of luck scooter commuters!

7

I lived in China for about 3 years before coming to Taiwan and I’ve seen some interesting things that relate to this subject.

One time I was in a pool and a guy was doing laps back and forth. I saw an older lady at one end of the pool putting on a swimming cap and goggles. I watched this scene unfold because I had been in China long enough to know exactly what was going to happen. And, sure enough, it did. The old lady dove into the pool almost directly on top of the guy’s head. And the old lady didn’t miss a beat. She just kept on swimming, as if nothing at all had happened. And the guy only looked at the lady for a second then just continued his lap. This was amazing to me on so many different levels. First, how could the old lady not notice the guy coming at her? Second, why could she not just alter her path or timing to avoid the guy? Third, why did she not acknowledge that something had happened? Fourth, why did the guy not berate her for almost killing him?

Another interesting observation I’ve made in my time in this part of the world is when people meet at a set of double-doors going in the opposite direction, they insist of squeezing past one another through the one open door. Me and my wife (she is Chinese, by the way) had to wait a few hours for a train so we just wasted time at a McDonalds across the street from the station. I had told her about this curious observation before so we sat there and watched what happened when people would meet at the double-doors going in the opposite direction. I even videotaped it and thought about putting it on Youtube but then reconsidered because it might come across as racist, since it would only show Asian people.

Anyway, when the first person comes to the doors and opens one door, the other person seems to be oblivious to the existence of the other door that is available to them. Instead what happens is they both body-check each other through the open door until they squeeze through. And only occasionally will one person wait for the other person to walk through first then proceed when the doorway is clear. The gods be damned! I must traverse this holy portal, no matter what may occur! Oh, and of course, these doors are made of glass. So each person should see the other coming ahead of time and be able to adjust their path and actions accordingly. If you’ve never noticed this before, I suggest you reserve some time in your life’s schedule for it. It’s actually quite a sight to behold.

On a more personal note, I can say that my wife is what you might call “clumsy.” She does not seem to understand the interconnectedness (is that a word?) of things. For example, if she wants to move her laptop, she forgets that it’s plugged into many different things: the charger, a mouse, a set of speakers, etc. So, she’ll grab her computer like a monkey about to hurl some angry feces and everything will go flying. And this is not an isolated incident. She does this type of thing ALL THE TIME. Reaching for something and knocking over a bunch of other stuff. Walking and not watching where she is going. Dropping stuff like she’s in the running for “Most Broken Crap Lifetime Achievement Award.”

This is what may be the root of the problem. As NonTocareLeTete stated, it’s a problem of spatial awareness. A lack of understanding of how things are connected through forces of time and space.

Now, having said all of this, I don’t want this to come across as racist. Because, for all I know, people in India and Africa and Sweden and Italy could exhibit these behaviors as well. But I can only report on what I have seen. And I never saw this type of behavior in America on such a consistent level. Except from @ssholes. America: land of the free, home of the… you know. :discodance:

As far as how all of this relates to riding on a scooter in Taiwan? Two words: defensive driving. And I mean “defensive” like Hicks-we’re-going-in-stay-frosty defensive!

Wow, this is a long post. I wonder if anyone besides me will actually read all of it.

8

I did read all of that, and honestly I’ve asked many Taiwanese people about it myself. What I find stunning is that every single person I spoke to, and I mean everyone, agrees with me. That it’s stupid, dangerous, and honestly weird, and yet they all keep doing it. Even more interestingly my girlfriend watched a TV show every night called 大學生了沒, and in one of the shows they talked about driving. I found their complaints interesting.

One was about people driving through puddles and splashing people (that’s illegal in the UK btw), another was about cars who stop in the area marked for bikes and scooters at traffic lights, and one was about scooters turning left but not using the special area set out for that (I don’t know the name in English). I told my gf that if I had been asked to go on the show my complaint would have been the general lack of education.

You might think it’s racist, but it’s not it’s cultural. They just aren’t taught to obey the rules so they don’t. In the UK at least, the driving test is extremely hard to pass, here it’s a joke. I don’t know how many of you have done it, but according to my girlfriend you go into a special test area, ride through some lines, and then you’re good to go. Compare that to places like the UK, where you have to take a theory test, hazard awareness (where you watch videos and click whenever you spot a potential hazard), followed by a 45 minute driving test on public roads, with an examiner watching your every move like a hawk.

That’s the difference, I must have taken 2 or 3 hundred hours of driving lessons, where forward thinking, making observations and so on were drilled into me until it became second nature. They just don’t get that here. So I personally blame the government, and poor test system, as well as the lack of law enforcement on traffic violations for it. What’s even more interesting is that I even remember in primary school being stuff like that, for example your thing with the double doors. When I was a child in school we get taught basic manners like holding the doors for people, waiting to let others pass, and so on.

Again my girlfriend (who is Taiwanese btw), completely agrees with everything I’ve said, and she also agrees that the driving test system needs to change. She also told me that some years ago people never used to wear helmets, but then the police started fining people for that, and now everyone wears them. So it’s certainly possible to change it, but according to her the only thing the government cares about is the economy, and that’s it. Who cares if some people knock each over on their bikes every now and then, as long as we’re rich that’s all that matters.

9

[quote=“44”]I lived in China for about 3 years before coming to Taiwan and I’ve seen some interesting things that relate to this subject.

One time I was in a pool and a guy was doing laps back and forth. I saw an older lady at one end of the pool putting on a swimming cap and goggles. I watched this scene unfold because I had been in China long enough to know exactly what was going to happen. And, sure enough, it did. The old lady dove into the pool almost directly on top of the guy’s head. And the old lady didn’t miss a beat. She just kept on swimming, as if nothing at all had happened. And the guy only looked at the lady for a second then just continued his lap. This was amazing to me on so many different levels. First, how could the old lady not notice the guy coming at her? Second, why could she not just alter her path or timing to avoid the guy? Third, why did she not acknowledge that something had happened? Fourth, why did the guy not berate her for almost killing him?[/quote] :laughing: I have seen nearly the exact same thing here in Taiwan, except I was the one whose head was nearly severed by a hefty woman. But, I must admit, there are an awful lot of people here who have swimming etiquette down to an exact science.

[quote]Another interesting observation I’ve made in my time in this part of the world is when people meet at a set of double-doors going in the opposite direction, they insist of squeezing past one another through the one open door. Me and my wife (she is Chinese, by the way) had to wait a few hours for a train so we just wasted time at a McDonalds across the street from the station. I had told her about this curious observation before so we sat there and watched what happened when people would meet at the double-doors going in the opposite direction. I even videotaped it and thought about putting it on Youtube but then reconsidered because it might come across as racist, since it would only show Asian people.

Anyway, when the first person comes to the doors and opens one door, the other person seems to be oblivious to the existence of the other door that is available to them. Instead what happens is they both body-check each other through the open door until they squeeze through. And only occasionally will one person wait for the other person to walk through first then proceed when the doorway is clear. The gods be damned! I must traverse this holy portal, no matter what may occur! Oh, and of course, these doors are made of glass. So each person should see the other coming ahead of time and be able to adjust their path and actions accordingly. If you’ve never noticed this before, I suggest you reserve some time in your life’s schedule for it. It’s actually quite a sight to behold.[/quote]That one has always bothered me. Now, I wait to see what door the other person is going to use and I use the other one. I usually get this look :astonished: which either means I’m being impatient or I have just rediscovered the wheel.

[quote]On a more personal note, I can say that my wife is what you might call “clumsy.” She does not seem to understand the interconnectedness (is that a word?) of things. For example, if she wants to move her laptop, she forgets that it’s plugged into many different things: the charger, a mouse, a set of speakers, etc. So, she’ll grab her computer like a monkey about to hurl some angry feces and everything will go flying. And this is not an isolated incident. She does this type of thing ALL THE TIME. Reaching for something and knocking over a bunch of other stuff. Walking and not watching where she is going. Dropping stuff like she’s in the running for “Most Broken Crap Lifetime Achievement Award.” [/quote]OK, I think that is just your wife :laughing:

[quote]Now, having said all of this, I don’t want this to come across as racist. Because, for all I know, people in India and Africa and Sweden and Italy could exhibit these behaviors as well. But I can only report on what I have seen. And I never saw this type of behavior in America on such a consistent level. Except from @ssholes. America: land of the free, home of the… you know. :discodance: [/quote]There are assholes everywhere. It’s just the details are different here, and there are many things that people do here that I have come to see as ‘normal,’ but I may have actually smacked someone for in the US.

Living here is a trip, on most days. To bring us back to the subject, IMO, defensive driving here is only going to help you so much. Until they invent motorcycles that surround me with some sort of protective foam just prior to impact, my ass is not getting on a scooter in this country ever again. I have seen too many terrible accidents, including dead bodies on the road in front of me. It ain’t pretty. To each his own, but I pity the fool that drives a scooter here.

10

I don’t know if you meant this line to be funny but I’ve laughed out loud every time I’ve read it. And I read it three times cause I like to laugh.
I was arguing with my friend (who was hit by a car here and had his leg shattered which required two surgeries and a lengthy hospital stay, an experience which made him pretty much hate this country) about driving here, trying to make a case that you can get hit by a car anywhere, so he should give Taiwan another chance. I even brought up how I was hit while driving in California, what a shitty accident it was and how the dude fell asleep at the wheel doing 90, and he said, “Yeah, but didn’t you say the dude who hit you was Asian?” :astonished:
Argument over. That’s the only reason I think it may be genetic. Asians have a terrible driving reputation in America too, and I tried to argue that maybe it was immigrants who learned to drive over here who then took their culturally interesting driving practices over to America and thereby gave the whole race a bad driving reputation. But could it really be that the FOB immigrants are out in such forces that they are poisoning the reputation of the whole race? The guy who hit me was full on American, nothing Asian about him except his genetics.
I dunno. I love Taiwan, love living here, love my Taiwanese friends and by and large believe that all races are more similar than they are different. But I have observed some pretty weird stuff here while driving, and walking, and yes, it even extends to surfing.
Stay safe out there!

11

It’s interesting, because the last time I was here I was here for three months, didn’t see a single accident, or even one close call. This time I’ve been here for 3 weeks only, and I’ve seen 2 or 3 accidents, and had 2 or 3 close calls. It’s weird.

12

The topic of driving/riding and accidents have been discussed so much on this forum. I was even told by a Forumosan veteren that if you are involved in an accident here it is your own fault, regardless, so I don’t bother to share what I see every day anymore, but I see the weirdest things everyday and it can be amazing when you can be there watching and you can tell that someone is going to do something stupid right in front of someone else… Worst is like the OP said, when you get hit from behind. I am always worried about that when I am first to stop at a red light.

It regards to the swimming etiquette, I usually go swimming at the sports centre near CKS Memorial Hall. Seems some people there have no idea about swimming down one side of the lane and swimming back down the other. You get these idiots doing their funny frog stroke/dog paddle down the middle of the lane. One time I asked the pool attendant why they weren’t asking the frog stroker to get out of the dedicated fast lane. The reposnse was that the fast lane had a time limit of 80 seconds so if you were slower than 80 seconds then you can’t go in that lane. So I timed her and sure enough, she was doing about 78 seconds. But me and everyone else in that lane were doing around 60 seconds. And the frog stroker, she never missed a beat. If you were scraping on her feet coming down towards the end of the lane, she would get to the end and turn without stopping to let you past.

And the doors… The MRT doors are what’s getting to me at the moment. It can’t be that hard to understand if the arrow is pointing that way it mean’s get on (so line up here) and it point the other way it means get off (so let the people get off), but people insists on standing all the way across the white waiting line so when the doors open and you want to get off the doorway is block and you have to push through. It seems like they don’t care if they get pushed. This happens even at non busy times throughout the day…

13

The thing you said with the MRT is a Chinese thing. It happened all the time in Shanghai too, so much so that there were certain places I would deliberately avoid because they are always so busy. Interestingly that doesn’t happen in Japan, but the driving in Japan according to an Italian friend of mine is “not as good as the stereotype would make you think”. I did have a quick browse before starting this thread and couldn’t find anything about accidents, I’ll have another look. I was surprised that it’s not a common topic here.

As I said though it’s certainly something that could be changed if the government bothered to do something about it, and there was more law enforcement for infractions.

14

It’s funny how it does go in phases. Safe driving for a few days, and then today I left a friend’s house and within minutes I’d had:
car go through a red light across the front of my bike
car driving in the dark and heavy rain with no lights at all, nearly didn’t see him
car all over the road in front of me, weaving left and right, looking for something, with hazard lights on.

Too many crazy things out there. I (mostly) drive very very defensively. That doesn’t mean slow, sometimes going slow is the worst you can do. But defensive.

15

On Taiwan roads, the person in front never has responsibility for the accident. Accidents are always the fault of the person behind. They should “know better.”
The “evil glare” was most likely because you made her ‘look stupid’ by almost running into your scooter.
She was caught in her dumbassness- you made her lose face. (Incongruous yes, but remember who you’re dealing with here)

VERY IMPORTANT RULE:

On Taiwan, there are no laws…merely suggestions. Proceed accordingly.

16

I think the Taiwanese are getting quite serious about dangerous scooter driving. For example, I just saw on the news a whole five minutes devoted to a story about a scooter driver in Kending who was drink driving and caused a death. It was a really long story, so it must be important news.

Oh. The scooter driver is a whitey. That explains it.

17

I usually head to the gym around lunchtime each weekday and watch the news while on the treadmill. It seems during that lunchtime news hour it must be traffic accident report hour as all they seem to show is car or scooter accidents, then the person in hospital or the grieving family if the person died and then the person who caused the accident (if they caught them) sometimes in handcuffs and ankle irons.

There was a good one about 2 weeks ago of a police chase from the onboard camera from the police car chasing a taxi driver. The police car tried to ram the taxi a couple of times but the taxi kept speeding off. They finally tapped him in the back causing him to lose control and hit a parked car which made him lose even more control and he smashed into the pillar out the front of a building. Then they showed him being taken from hospital with his head bandaged and him wearing handcuffs.

And as the OP was talking about being hit from behind, there was another video supplied from someone’s onboard camera while stopped at traffic lights. The car was behind the scooters when all of a sudden a car shoots past and wipes out about 5 stopped scooters sending people flying in all driections. I don’t think that person bothered stopping either.

While these are very serious and dangerous, sometimes the traffic incidents they show, the how and why are just ridiculous…

18

Doesn’t sound like even the police have much training here either. In the UK the police would NEVER ram a car off the road.

youtube.com/watch?v=N5fLh5xEFmE

They bring the car to a controlled and safe stop, using various techniques, the above video is just one way they do it.

Also how we teach people to drive.

youtube.com/watch?v=EvAQvBA0FAw

19

theory-test.co.uk/asp/hazard … n_info.asp

How many people in Taiwan do you think would pass that test?

20

[quote=“ninman”]http://www.theory-test.co.uk/asp/hazard_perception_info.asp

How many people in Taiwan do you think would pass that test?[/quote]

Don’t need that sort of rubbish here. We’ve got the reverse S-bend :wink:.