The thing is, how do you differentiate the “hard men” or “wankers” (in my opinion) from the idiots. As we all know, you will never fuck with a group of bikers in leathers who cut you off in your home country. But here they all drive girly bikes and sport gay Japanese haircuts.
Glad you are ok ! I guess once you have been here longer you can generally tell if you have a moto gang around you or not. Give a wide berth when you do. Those guys ride around looking for trouble.
And if there isnt any, they start something.
scared of moped kids in Taiwan! they are wanks. if you look remotely intimidating or crazy, they want nothing to do with you. they like picking on old people and and kids their own age. way too much to lose by getting shown up by a potentially unbalanced foreigner. and they aren’t connected to anyone really important. i drink with some local ‘heishoudang’ in taoyuan and they wouldn’t have anything to do with moped punks.
many muggings in the states work in a similar manner. if you appear afraid or immobile or otherwise an easy target, then you are indeed a target and ought to exercise caution. i used to walk home from my local bar through the east side of buffalo singing or talking to myself and brandishing the last bottle or glass i had used in the bar. never jumped once. i was jumped once while walking down the street with my nose in a book and not paying any attention to my environment.
and then of course there is the slight chance that you run into someone as crazy as you or high on bad drugs.
of course if i had my kid with me, then priority one is the kid. i probably wouldn’t honk if my kid was with me. in fact, the little duffer has severely cramped my driving style.
I had a pretty strange experience today that might qualify.
Was on the bike heading back toward the factory and saw a rather hopped up Nissan 300ZX in front of me. I did my usual weave and bob to the front of the line, and suddenly there was a huge squealing of tires as the guy did a much too close fly by to get to the front before the light changed…And then sat there revving his engine.
This might be fun. The light turns green, I twist the throttle (not a bad hole shot for an old dude either) and the Kawi is through 3 gears with the Nissan 20 car lengths back. Done deal.
I’ve had my fun…backed off and all the sudden this guy swoops by me, crosses into my lane at 180plus and comes within an inch of taking my knee off.
Ok, it’s not fun anymore. I hit the throttle until the speedo was buried. He did the same. I caught the little fuckwit at the next light.
“Hey man, it was all in fun”…“Why were you getting so close to me?”
Very pissed looking driver says “FUCK YOU”
This is where it gets interesting…I slammed the roof of his car with my fist 3 times and motioned for Mr. Johnny leather driving gloves to get the fuck out. He rolls up the window, and sedately drives off.
I’m pissed now…I’ll follow this guy to the gates of hell and back. So, I sedately follow behind him.
Then, he rolls down his window and waves at me!
Shit, I couldn’t be mad anymore…Simply waved back, made a U-turn and went back to work.
this often happens to me… at much lower speeds! that sounds f-ing nuts. but good on ya.
Almost a year ago, I had a “run-in” with a similar psycho. I was driving to work after lunch, staying in the scooter lane where I generally am when I’m not passing. I’m looking around in my mirrors because there’s a farmer dick pulling a dolly/trailer thing at about 20kmph about 30m in front of me, and the cars next to him are bumper-to-bumper. Suddenly, an idiot in a black BMW with the license number 7717-RV dives in front of me, so I move to the left. Now I’m driving next to him, but his passage is being blocked by farmer dick and friends. This is, obviously, my fault. I accelerate to the front of the scooters, (thinking nothing of it; just a typical trip to work) when mister sir pulls up behind me, honking and gesticulating. I think it must be meant for someone else. The dickweed stays behind me, honking, until I slow down and let him go past. He does, and then repeatedly darts in front of me, causing me to brake and trying to push me off the road. Finally, I’m getting freaked out, so I get up onto a sidewalk running parallel to the road. He proceeds to block my exit and I get off my scooter. He comes out of the car, ready to fight. Then he’s taken aback to discover that I’m a waiguoren and a woman (I wear a sort of androgenous winter jacket…)
He starts shouting and gesticulating that I’m the one weaving through traffic. (dude, you cut me off by diving into MY lane; I changed lanes to avoid hitting you!) His other vocabulary consist of FAR-Q Waiguoren! Go to the homuh. Here’s where I really betrayed myself. I am anything but submissive, but I found myself apologizing to this prick, as if I had been at fault. It was as if my body was a puppet and my mind was telling me to stop, but I couldn’t; I hate myself to this day for apologizing to THAT. Finally, apparently satisfied, he weaved off, cutting off people left, right and centre.
Since then, I’ve seen him on the road several times, always driving aggressively and always weaving and looking as if he’s about to lose control of his stupid car, pulling ahead of scooter boxes and once, challenging another car. Every time I see him, I feel freaked, but he either doesn’t notice me (scooters can be kind of anonymous, thankfully) or chooses not to act. That number again, in case you’re in the Hsinchu area (Hsiangshan, near the Chunghua/Niupu roads) is 7717-RV.
I always had a stainless steel rod in my car just in case, plus a couple of golf clubs (with some golf balls in case the police asks and they do…I dont play golf tho). The thing to do is put one of those clubs on the back tray so they can see it thru the glass. Thats one of the gangstercar signs. But carry golf balls so the police dont charge you with offensive intent (haha).
But its best to avoid trouble. BE careful always of who is around you and best to avoid problems, just not worth it. I came close a few times to a confrontation. One time a beetlenut chewing dude thought he might start something when he came up behind me at a red. But he took a look at me (i look like a Taiwanese thug with my perm ) and the gangster mollie looking gal next to me (my wife) and went back to his car without saying another word. HA @!
Best to just defuse any tension with a wave. Its just not worth it. If you fight you have to be prepared to fight for your life, because you could be. Taiwanese generally dont fight and if they do, its real ugly.
Ha, MJB, so it was you in your secret identity that followed me home last night…
Well thanks guys for the support. I thought I would be risking it posting it here by getting blamed again for it being all my fault.
I am afraid to say it, but I do agree with the Sandman for once… 
Next month I will have completed my 10 years here, with 8 of them riding and this is the first time I have had such an incident. I have seen other incidents of road rage. I even saw a small guy Taz a big big guy on HsinYi Road near Daan Park one Saturday morning…
So why did I blast him with the horn, well it was to wake him up in case he really didn’t see me. Double yellow lines on the curve and he cuts into my path.
I actually don’t honk often when my boy is on the back. But it also makes me angrier when people do things when I have him on the back, but that is another thread where I got called irresponsible for having him on the back. Maybe like acid said, they thought I was an easy target as I had my boy on the back.
Could type all night, haven’t had a chance to vent in English yet, only my half-assed Chinese to some friends which mainly consists of, “Wo hen shenchi”
They know where I live and how to get in… I guess it will be a case of looking over the shoulder for a while… :fume:
Those twats should be pulled out of thir cars and given a good kicking! Hehe cyberrage. 'Cept they are gonna call twenty of their mates with baseball bats. Wankers.
:roflmao:
Teddy bear ears on helmets are de rigueur also.
A little off topic, but related…
The Taiwanese inclination to not get involved and not sort this sort of nonsense out really pisses me off too because it perpetuates it. Two weekends ago, my girlfriend, her friend, and I were riding through Sanxia. They were a little bit behind me on her scooter. As I was driving down the main drag, I saw this big dude throwing (yes, throwing) his girlfriend around on the street with a huge crowd, all doing nothing. Of course, the guy drove a pimped out BMW.
I slammed on the brakes and stopped. This guy’s girlfriend got away from him and tried to jump in his car to grab something of hers (all her other stuff was strewn on the road). He grabbed her again and threw her on the street and then jumped in his car.
By now, I’d told my girlfriend to call the cops, and her friend had photographed him and his car.
He started trying to drive off, but his girlfriend was then hanging out his window. He was trying to drive off like that, but he couldn’t shake her off.
My girlfriend and some random Taiwanese teenager (the only one out of hundreds of people who would help) were screaming at this guy while I got on my scooter to try to park it behind his car (okay, he would have badly damaged it if he’d tried to reverse over it, but I figured he’d do more damage to his car, and it would have at least stopped him from driving off with his girlfriend hanging off the car at some high speed, only to fall off and get run over and die).
Finally, the police arrived. Within minutes, there were ten police.
This jerk-off repeatedly dropped about 10,000NT on the road while looking for his licence, all the while screaming at both his girlfriend and the police. By now, the Taiwanese kid didn’t want to get involved and took off on his bicycle. I told my girlfriend that I’d be a witness if necessary (even if this dick would come to get me later), and my girlfriend gave her details to the police and a statement too. Of course, they never contacted her. I’m sure it was all settled under the table.
I thought the police handled it really badly actually. With the nonsense he was pulling with them, they should have cuffed him and taken him away. At the very least, they should have taken both of them down to the local station, put them in different rooms, got a statement from both, and also got statements from several witnesses.
Welcome to Taiwan. Taiwan is “safe” haven’t you heard. Its safe because the statistics prove it is. I have been victim to more violence here than I did in the U.K. It drives me nuts when I here people go on about how safe it is, when they simply feel so because they aren’t local enough, and they don’t count traffic.
Ya people need to stop being deer and step in and do something.
I wonder if the girl was his wife? Hes probably some gangster.
I once saw a woman lying in the middle of a main road at night with a small van behind it, as if blocking the driver. Then the front wheel of the van actually rolled over her. Nobody else around. I’m standing there thinking what the f%^k is this. Then the driver came out and dragged her into the back of the van where I saw two kids and realised it was some type of domestic but of the worst abusive kind. I shouted someting at the guy and he threw the woman back in and sped off. If I had confronted the guy it probably would have got really nasty, I’ll admit if he wasn’t so massive for a Taiwanese it would have been an easier decision, I called the cops with the number and direction of the vehicle but don’t know if they actually did anything in the end.
I"ve been taken out me and my scooter once by a boy racer from behind (got light scars to prove it), he fled the scene but a witness actually offered to help me (wow), I didn’t follow it up because I didn’t have a license, since realised it would have been better to prosecute him and not having a scooter license is not such a big deal in such a situation.
I’ve driven a bit on the motorways, it can be very dangerous what with all the heavy vehicles, drunk drivers at night and boy racer/ganster types. I once had one BMW (aren’t they always) pull in front of me in the fast lane and block me off going at about 110km/hr. I had my wife in the car and if there was an accident we could have been killed so I had to let it slide, but I thought about the best way to deal with these situations. Instead of honking and making it a more dangerous situation for yourself roll down your window, take your mobile phone and even if it doesn’t have a camera make like you are taking pictures of the reg. and the car. They’ll be worrying about a call from the police at the very least. Next time!
Well I got the security footage of those dudes who followed me into my B1 and confronted me. The whole thing from the time I swiped my card to get in, to the time they left was less than 2 minutes.
The camera showed me swiping my card and 3 scooters just cruised past my driveway, they certainly didn’t seem to be in a hurry like they were chasing anyone. They almost went straight past, but then they stopped, and then again in no big hurry, they just turned into my drive and followed me down. Maybe that is why I didn’t think much of it as they weren’t being threatening or revving loud or anything like that. I just thought it was another resident following me in.
I said before there were 4 of them, Well the camera does show 4 scooters following me in, but the last one was a resident, and that is the one that I thought was blocking me on the other side, but he was just parking his bike he stood there for a few seconds watching and I lost track of where he was as he parked his bike and walked off.
So all of the confrontational stuff is out of view of the camera, but it didn’t last long as I said the whole thing lasted less than 2 minutes. They then come back into camera view as they ride there bikes back toward the gate to get out. And just at that time, another resident came in, so they were lucky that happened as they would have been trapped down there for a while if no one came as you need a swipe card to get back out and it is a roller shutter gate, so no way out.
Only one of their number plates show up clearly on the video as when they left they were bunched together and they blocked the view of the other 2. And again when they left, they just cruised out in no big hurry, got to the top of the driveway and turned and cruised off.
That makes the whole thing seem even more bizarre as when the dude cut across my side of the road, there was a group of maybe 5 or 6 scooters grouped together, just like they had taken off from the traffic lights before the curve together, and the dude that cut across was going pretty fast too, in contrast to the way those 3 dudes just cruised in and cruised out again. If I had been only a few seconds faster I would have already been in the B1 and they would have cruised right on past the driveway… 
That is a weird story, Sean. Makes you wonder what they were planning to do, if anything.
These posts have made me think. I have occasional bouts of what I call “Righteous Road Rage”. I am not really that angry, and could let it slide, but actually, I don’t think that the “offender” (I could use more colorful terms here), should get away with what they just did.
Now for me, I am a 180 cm, 100 kg - big dude, with 20 years of training in martial arts. I grew up in the prairies of Canada, in one of the rougher cities, and fights were a regular thing. Every guy I know has been in several fights in his life. As have I. So why, on God’s great Earth, should I be afraid of some stick -thin asshole who thinks that swerving at me and acting like a complete teenager should scare me? And in all likelihood, has seen not a single fight in his life?
Of course, it is the group, gang mentality that is the problem. You confront one guy, and the cell phone comes out and there are 10 of them (especially cabbies). This is why I consider a cellphone a weapon on the same magnitude as a knife of gun. It comes out, and you should attack. Or at least take the phone away.
I may sound like a complete asshole, but I am tired of this. But all of this is simply because of the complete ineffectiveness of the police. Law enforcement here is a joke, and when locals want something to happen, they sure don’t go to the police. My question is … why hasn’t a foreigner “group” similar to the “Dage” mentality appeared yet? We try and play on the same playing field as back in our respective homes, but we are missing the point. This is not a place of law and order. It is a land of guanxi and connections. All of which the people in the Sapranos understand far better. This is also the reason why many of these groups came about - the term “protection” at one point wasn’t just taking money from people, it was actually protecting them from other gangs.
I know to some this may sound ridiculous, but honestly, in Canada I am the last person to start trouble. And on a certain level, I think that police are a type of gang that is supposed to enforce the laws of the country, isnt it? And when that isnt being done, then, well, other things happen.
But perhaps this is all because I have been watching too much Dexter …
Noel: No, I agree and sympathise.
Well I guess I want to post something.
I have so many near death/murder experiences on the roads here I don’t bother to post them anymore. I even had a road rage incident near Shuang Xi at very high speeds with a guy trying to knock me off the road or lock up his brakes in front of me the same week this post came up.
I got his plate number so we’ll settle it my own way when I’m ready and he’s not.
My observations:
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There is no justice in Asia
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These drivers lack something in their lives that they have to overcompensate for, it’s like the overly macho guy who’s a closet Queer, and kills his whole family instead of just buying tighter jeans and dancing with sweaty men.
3.The roads in Taiwan were not built for high performance vehicles. Sport vehicles, large German cars or tour buses.
They were built for high performance goat carts and three wheeled pedicabs. If there was a true motto for Taiwan it should be “Taiwan-we’re too cheap to fix it properly”
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Group beatings are a common and accepted phenomenon in Taiwan. I’ve heard Taiwanese guys bragging about them as if they had just won the local MMA tournament.
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Gravel trucks ALWAYS have the right of way (Got to get that gravel there on time dammit! Society might collapse without it!) Taxis own the road, “I have to drive in circles 8 hours a day watching TV on my dashboard-my life sucks AND IT WILL NEVER GET BETTER.”
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I’ve never had an Asian man step out of his car to fight me without a weapon in his had or 2+ friends backing him up.
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You are always outnumbered.
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If you are beaten nothing will happen to your assailants you might get a small payment. This however works both ways so don’t hold back if you think you are going to win.
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I’ve never had anyone try to fight me while walking down the street but I have had a guy drive up on the sidewalk and hit me intentionally with his car. He got out with an iron bar. I sent him to the hospital (see #8)
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If you got the balls to flip someone off in traffic you better have the balls to back it up. Otherwise just smile, wave and go home healthy and happy.
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Protect yourself and loved ones because no one else will. Like the old Blues song said “It’ll be your funeral and my trial”
I think the OP did the right thing by making sure his kid was safe first. I’d like to hear if he pursues and legal path. I bet nothing will happen. Can anyone remember the last time someone was beaten up here and got justice or compensation?
He can’t pursue anything because there was no crime committed(aside from dangerous driving). I had a cop pull a left in front of me on my green light when i was going straight yesterday. A bloody police officer cut me off, disgraceful. I have accepted this here from the drivers and let the little bastards sneak in front of me with the left turn if it is when the light first changes. This way i only have to wait a couple extra seconds before going, but i can’t stand it when i am actually driving, they pull in front of oncoming traffic and i have to stop.
As I waited at a green light to turn left from a two-lane (one each way) road onto another two-lane (one each way) road, and watched as oncoming traffic was completely halted by not one, not two, but three discrete flows of traffic turning onto the same two-lane (one each way) road in front of them, and the pedestrians trying to legally cross with the light played chicken with the three flows, and then out of the corner of my eye I realized that a fourth vehicle was trying to squeeze through as well, only this one was in fact a forklift, it dawned on me that not only was this taking place right in front of a hospital where there are hordes of crutch and wheelchair-bound folks out for a stroll, it’s also a block away from a large police station (Bubba 2G knows the corner).
And I was suddenly seeing this all-too-familiar scenario like a stranger would.
And I was ashamed at the sloth, avarice, and moral bankruptcy that would make this kind of conduct acceptable.
The place is broke, and there’s no fixing it.