Tainan to PARTIALLY end mandatory hook turns for White/Green plates motorcycles

EDIT: Seems to be for roads 2 lanes wide on your side of the road.


Tainan plans to end mandatory hook turns at intersections by end of this year.

In the English article here it says end to ALL mandatory hook turns in Tainan, but in local news the Mayor’s statement seems to be in response to a city counselor calling for the end to mandatory hook turns on roads where one side is only two lanes and removing the ban on white/green plate motorcycles in inner lanes on such roads so I’m not totally clear yet if it is really all intersections or just on roads where one side is only two lanes.


Previously Tainan has been removing mandatory hook turns, a.k.a. two-stage turns at some intersection as part of trial. Now the city has announced it will fully remove mandatory two stage turns meaning that riders can now do direct left turns on white/green plate motorcycles at intersections where it was previously required to do a hook turn. Key word is mandatory, meaning you can still choose to perform a hook turn and go to the turn box.

Road markings banning white/green plate motorcycles from inner lanes will also be removed as roads are updated.

During the trial there was a reduction in motorcycle accidents at the intersections.

Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che announced plans to fully permit motorcycles to
turn left at all intersections by the end of the year.

Since October last year, 16 road sections across 10 districts have been
opened for direct left turns by motorcycles.

The city aims to open an additional 36 road sections for direct left turns by
year-end, based on the success of the current implementation and public
feedback.

Before opening new sections, road surface updates will be completed, and
existing “No Motorcycles” markings will not be repainted.

All related signage and markings are expected to be updated by year-end.

The city will also review and update sections under other administrative
areas and the Highway Bureau’s jurisdiction.

In the local news at intersections where direct left turns were allowed as part of trials only 20 accidents that involved motorcycles doing direct left turns. 14 were from riders turning from the OUTERMOST lane to make a left turn.

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LOL it says something about our acceptance of Taiwan disastrous traffic that 20 accidents in about half a year on a limited selection of roads can be described as “only”!

As a biker I welcome the end of the dumb hook turn however as a road user here and a realist, true carnage is about to begin! There are reasons hook turns were introduced and I see no change that means those reasons no longer exist.

Whilst actual motorcyclists are capable of, and should be allowed to, make their own decisions on when it’s safe to left turn I’m afraid for the majority of scooterists here it’s far more responsibility than they can deal with…

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14 were riders making a left turn from the outermost lane so that leaves 6 but the news doesn’t mention who was at fault in those incidents. It seems that quite a few sections already had been opened up to direct left turns across multiple districts and overall incidents involving motorcycles are less than before so we’ll see.

A lot of riders will probably still do the hook turns anyways, but at least now you can have the choice to do a direct turn.

One reason is that the outside lane is effectively now just parking. Sometimes the second lane as well

Glad to see it removed as hook turns waste a ton of time. Taichung for years already has taken a ton of them out at smaller intersections. Kaohsiung on the other hand loves them even at small intersections.

Plus it’s dangerous for pedestrians as people cross the line all the time while people walk to do the hook turn.

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More injuries and more deaths will be the result.

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That was never a reason for introducing the hook turn.

After looking at some more posts online it seems to be just for 2 lane roads (not counting slow lane) on your side of the road. So larger roads/intersections won’t be changing. Again main thing is it removes the mandatory hook turn.

Another benefit to getting rid of banning scooters from inner lanes on these two lane sections is that now you will no longer have to illegally go around all the illegally parked vehicles that are blocking both the outside lane (and slow lane if there is one) as before if you are banned from entering the inner lanes going into those lanes to go around illegally parked vehicles is also illegal and you can get a ticket. You are supposed to stop and wait for the illegally parked vehicle to move or call the police.

In Tainan’s trial of it so far there have been less accidents involving motorcycles.

Here’s an older reddit thread (the article is no longer up on TaiwanNews) for when Taoyuan was starting trials, they saw a drop of 40%.

Removal of left turn boxes for scooters led to 40% fewer accidents in Taoyuan | Taiwan News

EDIT:

Found the article: From 2016 to 2018 when Taoyuan trialed the removal of hook turns at 17 intersections there was a 40% reduction in vehicle accidents.

The change at the very least makes it consistent with two lane sections as some places on the same road you can make direct turns and others you can’t even though the ones you can make direct turns at can have larger amounts of traffic and bigger intersections than the hook turn intersections.

Most riders will probably still do hook turns anyways. It’s no different than regular situation on 2 lane sections of roads people turn left on anyways.

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But why are there less accidents when removing hook turns? Do people end up crossing lanes and causing accidents to get to the hook turn box? I would think more accidents would be caused from no hook turns because you can turn into oncoming traffic.

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One major reason is the driving culture where people don’t signal and don’t look ahead and don’t turn carefully. So there’s a gaggle of vehicles perhaps at a red light with some on the far right who want to go straight, some on the far left who want to go right, some in the middle who are going to the box, and a bunch of scooter behind them who want to go straight before the light changes while a line of cars in the middle lane wants to turn right. In a context where the average driver is so bad, it adds an unnecessary layer of difficulty to an already bad situation.

Another issue is the 2 minute lights. If a driver just misses a light they have to wait 2 minutes in the often bad weather for a light to change so they can move to the box and wait another two minutes. But if that driver just speeds up and squeaks through the yellow, just in time, they don’t have to wait at all. So the boxes incentivize people to drive dangerously

Or, the boxes are often too small, so people end up basically sitting in the intersection

Or, the boxes require everyone turning left to get in front of people already waiting, creating an unnecessary mass of impatient riders all clustered together, twice as big as it needs to be. When the light changes and the whole mess moves forward, the speed demons will weave to get past the doddering old ladies with their feet down so they can be the first to wait at the next light (which is already red), and in the process they cut off a safe driver who is forced to tap their brakes and gets hit by the idiot behind them who started moving when theynheard the engines go but hadn’t quite finished fumbling their phone intontheir pocket

It’s just an unnecessary complication in a system already plagued by bad infrastructure and bad drivers

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To be fair that’s every traffic light here. Not fining people from going through reds incentivizes people to go through them.

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I would assume it’s quite a few factors playing into it.

I’m just going to take a guess at it for now based on my experiences or just what I’ve seen around. Also…excuse my ugly paint scribbles.

Fundamentally it complicates something that is simple. Stay left to turn left, stay right to tun right.

If we’re just talking about the two lanes (on your side of the road) being able to directly turn then it makes things more consistent. On these kinds of roads it’s not unusual you can just directly make a left turn, but at some you need to make a hook turn so it can catch people by surprise, especially if the hook turn signal is not visible because it’s blocked by shops, tress, illegally parked vehicles, etc., causing people to quickly change lanes which can lead to accidents.

No rules on if you need turn signal or not going to the turn box so people with right signals on and hanging further to the right looking like they are really making a right turn but ends up curving back towards the turn box and sometimes getting hit by turning cars or scooters.

Cars making right turns but scooters still trying to pass on the right while other scooters going to the turn box are passing the car from the left side of the outer lane as the car moves over to the side while yielding to pedestrians can also lead to collisions.

Not to mention all the illegally parked vehicles on the side of the road, delivery trucks, buses, taxis etc. which makes the outer lanes quite dangerous as it is crowded with many obstacles for riders forcing them to constantly weave in and out of traffic on many roads.

Turn boxes are also typically placed really close to pedestrian crossings. Riding on the crosswalk is illegal but when the turn box is so close it’s not surprising people will ride on the edge of it. Or in more serious cases something like this where it cuts into the the crosswalk.

This creates a lot of conflict between pedestrians and motorcycles.

While this is from old news it’s not surprising to see insanely small turn boxes, cut out from crosswalks, or too far out into the road putting riders at risk of other vehicles or when there’s an accident or crash it’s happened quite a few times where motorcyclists waiting in the turn stage box have been hit.

For the bigger intersections can also have this problem.

The case where the right most lane is only a turn lane so you are not supposed to go to the turn box as it is essentially going straight to get to the box, so if you go from the straight lane you are at a very serious risk of scooters and cars going straight in the turn lane and hitting you.

This design process, in my opinion, also leads to other poor road designs/decisions such as this one which I’ve complained about before near Taichung Airport. Speed limit is 40 on this road yet the inner lane is the “fast” lane and motorcycles are banned. So you have to keep going straight and turn left at the next junction which is more dangerous as you have oncoming traffic to deal with…rather than just riding on the inner lane and going straight and keeping to the left which is completely safe.

Green line is oncoming traffic, blue line is okay for cars but not scooters. Scooters have to take the red line.

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Here’s another take of the incident with the flying rider.

I surely hope it helps. There are valid points on both sides of the debate. It all boils down to lack of spacial awareness, critical thinking and basic driving skill.

But the reason I think it might cause more is because now we have small scooters hanging out in the middle of the road, waiting to turn. Many drivers are over the line. I can’t count how many scooters I see laid out in the middle of the road because someone clipped them. Or they ran into the middle of the lane etc.

This isn’t solving any issues. The root issues remain, people will die because of this.

Agree. That’s a very vulnerable position to be in. I try to avoid it if I can when I drive (a car) here and would not want to do it if riding a scooter unless there’s a (protected) left turn lane.

In safer roads with safer drivers, it can be okay, but Taiwan is special. I give them the special status they usually claim in terms of how specially dangerous it is.

Plus now scooters will also ride on any lanes. Taking into the mix how they overtake and zigzag in traffic, I can totally expect that most of the crashes with a scooter (or other vehicle) waiting to turn left will be with scooters overtaking like if they were in a Moto3 race.

So, why is Tainan doing this instead of other one million things? This is essentially free cost and they can argue they are doing things to fix traffic.

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It is indeed a very strange move. It solves nothing. It draws attention to their&our ineptitude. It addresses zero root causes of driving safety. And so on.

I get why some scooter drivers may think it is decent ont he face of things. I doubt any professional driver (meaning, for their profession, not that they are skilled) of car/truck will thunk this is a good move.

The 2 way trun style, albiet slow, is far superior so far as basicness in regards to our fairly low level skill sets in Taiwan in regards to driving. The last thing we need for retarded drivers is adding yet another dimension to it without first amping up itelligence and skillset.

But, makes sense. Sure. In a government knee jerk way of justifying thier jobs type of way.

I think its fine on 2 lane roads. More than that and its a bit sketchy due to having to cross multiple lanes.

I’m not sure why but crossing lanes here is sketchy. Possibly a lack of planning, people think its ok to just cross whenever. My gf always tells me to just park wherever and i like to plan ahead where i am going to park, might be a similar thing with the turning.

But it does reduce accidents

These are the worst drivers. Didn’t the taxi union try to push to be allowed to drink and drive?

I agree the general bad driving here is an issue, but that’s not limited to one type of vehicle. Why not ban left turns for everyone?

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I get it. If I’m wrong, hapy to admit it. But it seems polar opposite to what so many see on the roadways. Overtime, sadly, we shall see.

But…hehe. I will be more direct in my thought process about why this is a bad move. Or, at least why I think it is a bad move. But to be honest, the driving ability here is so absolute shite, it’s kind of a 6 of one, half a dozen of the other type situation. Which is my main point. It solves nothing. It just makes government drones look like they are “trying” to solve a problem which they clearly are not. This is why:

If we allow scooters to sit into he middle of the intersection to turn left, sure, it let’s traffic move faster. Likely the reason behind this is because, any of us that drive often in tainan know the traffic struggles based on cluster fuckery and more importantly time. It’s economical. 100 million turns a day made 30 seconds faster have a real economic impact. This is true and I don’t dispute it much. It is cheaper to pay out a disgraceful amount of money to coddle the loss of a loved one. This is taiwans status quo. And is what I strongly disagree with.

Why, then, do I think allowing scooters sitting in the middle of the road between opposing traffic is bad?

  1. Lack of Spacial awareness
  2. Lack of Logic training
  3. Lack of Critical thinking
  4. Poor Eyesight
  5. Distractions on roadways (be it signs or otherwise which are a free for all)
  6. Lack of selflessness (ie. People here are selfish when driving)
  7. A highly drug (narcotic) induced society based on stimulants (be it caffeine, nicotine, amphetamine, betel jut and so on)
  8. A nearly total lack of meaningful enforcement
  9. A very retarded justice system (when things go wrong, innocent t people suffer and monsters go free. All the fucking time!)
  10. The government LITERALLY draws lines on the roads wrong and CAUSES death and injury. Daily! I mean they intentionally are dumb as fuck and cause death. Cause it. Something I am so beyond pissed off about!
  11. Extreme weather. Enter: one face save for the shitty drivers :yawning_face:
  12. Regulations on cars themselves, including enforcement. Letting an essentially nearly blind populace with zero education on a topic operate heavy machinery at high speeds then tint their front windows and allow manufacturing to limit rear view visibility is a recipe for disaster. Not even coca-cola recipe is so dialed in. But hey, they have large TV screens now to see how to park. Surely that can’t go wrong :grimacing:
  13. Most vehicles here don’t even have mandatory lights on. This is starting to change, but not really a thing yet. Bright lights = people notice
  14. Lack of testing
  15. Lack of training
  16. Lack of culture accepting failure as a way of improving
  17. Prevalence of “training” schools giving morons cheat codes to pass a test rather than actually training people how to drive
  18. I’m tired of finding more reasons this regulation is dumb as fuck. It can work in an intelligent environment. But we don’t have such an environment, thus letting people drive like their morons…that’s to say: A. B.C. rather than expecting them to understand the deepest poetry may be better.r. step by step.

I just can’t see scooters being legally allowed, in court, to hang out in the middle of the road given the reality in Taiwan. The courts are going to be even more bogged down than they already are with stupid shit and moronic people that are even more entitled than they were before this measure.

I see no positive other than we trade safety for economic gain.

But hey, I could be right off my fucking rocker and totally wrong. Nothing would make me happier :hugs:

Everything on this list applies to cars, who are allowed to turn left.

You keep missing the key point that in Tainan they found FEWER accidents at intersections WITHOUT the two stage turns

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