People should try to keep the laws. The locals may not do it, but that’s a bad excuse for us not doing it.
Seems like you got a little upset, Flipper.
The lack of a civil society (however defined) in Chinese societies has been a theme of writing in both the western and eastern academia. And it does explain a lot of the flaws in the drafting of laws and their enforcement.
Whether it is the most significant explanation or not is another matter. But its a valid point to make - and one that seems to be at the heart of what Galley Gong was saying.
Afraid your pouting hasn’t added much to the discussion.
But it was fun to read.
Mark0938’s story about the gorgeous gal and the rozzer doesn’t surprise me at all. I’ve noticed that the police tend to pull over the cutest babes in the shortest skirts. I can hardly blame them - I’d probably do exactly the same in their position. I wonder if they ever get lucky and score some follow-up action?
Might nice topic you got going here.
Flipper wrote:
Easy flip! Go read my post again. I was talking about the effect that such unbalanced enforcement has on the average Taiwanese. Dude (assuming you are a dude), chill.
On a separate note, I agree with this statement:
The photo goes with the initial scenario that I painted, which is that cops have a very lopsided enforcement policy based on money-making. I think the best anecdote of this is summed up here:
This is the real issue here. Not whether the guy in the photo should or should not have been given a ticket.
Example:
When I first started riding my Vespa, I didn’t have a local licence. This was about six years ago. I was pulled over for a crack in my windshield. Of course, I wasn’t as arrogant as I am today 
, so I was really nervous. He eventually let me go. I got pulled over a few more times, and was let go.
Six months later I got a licence. In a little over five years I’ve probably been pulled over five times, most of which I have produced my license and have been promply given a ticket.
Why the difference? For those of you who think it is because you are foreigner, I think it has very little to do with it (although some). It is because it was easy. I had a licence and they could now run me through the system without having to communicate much with me.
Furthermore, when I didn’t have a license, it was more of a pain to process me on the street. They’d have to actually take my 16-year-old clunker Vespa from me, taken me down to the station, etc. etc. etc. That would be a waste of their time and would detract from catching more people for cracked tail-light violations, a more profitable venture. (although I did see the need to get a licence since I knew one day they WOULD take me in … probably to practice their English).
In California, where I am from, you drive without a licence. Dude, that is BAD news. No cop is going to let you off for that, inconvenient or not. You’re going downtown.
The idea in California is that a cop could pull you over for anything that is lawless at any time. Therefore, people are mindful of following the law in general. They know that if they pull a crazy stunt in front of a cop, that cop will whip around and chase you down.
However, in Taiwan, the average Taiwanese has no fear of endangering human life within the presence of on-duty cops. Why? Cause that cop is busy making money giving tickets for something else. The Taiwanese know how to play the game. There is no little threat of getting a ticket for something that isn’t on the “crakdown list” of the day.
So, to mention Rascal and others’ comments on using strict laws to teach the Taiwanese, I totally agree. A great success story was with the enforcement of the helmet law and how law eventually changed public perception. However, most of the time it is not like that. For Taiwanese to truly learn from the law, Taiwan would have to implement a consistent fines-for-everything system like Singapore. But as it stands now, I don’t see that working very well in this culture.
Well, yes and no. The truth is, that although this is a federal law it is only rigidly enforced in Taipei City proper, sporadically in other cities and Taipei county, and in most of Taiwan, not at all. Law enforcement success story or just another example of the whimsy of Taiwan’s police officers? You be the judge. :?
I have driven a Vespa here for over 17 years. A windshield? That is really dangerous. You can’t see shit with those things. You should ditch it if you haven’t already.
Maybe corruption and spotty enforcement aren’t the only factors here. Probably stupidity has something to do with it too. Solomon Islands Ambassador Seth Gukuna got into a fender-bender last night while he was out on the piss, the stupid git. Stupider still were the cops who wanted to charge him:[quote]The police wanted to bring criminal charges against Gukuna for endangering public safety, but the Taipei Prosecutors’ Office pointed out that as an ambassador, Gukuna enjoys diplomatic immunity.
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Don’t they teach the cops here anything? 
I knew what diplomatic immunity was in grade school.
I eventually ditched the windshield. It was great for keeping crap out of my eyes, although, yes, visibility sucked. Yea, I even had the electric windshield wiper. What a dork! 
My mechanic eventually convinced me to take it off.
But after fighting with montly repairs on my Vespa, I finally broke down and bought the new 4-stroke Vespa. Sad, actually I like riding by shifting gears. And with the 150 engine, it packs a bigger punch when going up hills. The new 125 Vespas is not really like riding a Vespa. Too bad, the older version is still in production in Italy and is common in Singapore. I guess it is the 2-stroke emission laws that keep them out.
Maybe I’ll get my old Vespa out of mothballs someday and get it cherried up. 8)
Isn’t the point of the motorcycle helmet law to save injury or life?. If so why doesn’t it demand that helmets are of a certain quality - to a national standard?.
How come on the day of real implementation there were thousands of helmets for sale on every street corner?. Did the factories have pre -warning, or was the implementation just to sell helmets. We all know who are the biggest business owners in Taiwan - don’t we?
Besides that I believe there would have been an announcement before the actual implementation I totally agree that just wearing something helmet-like on top of your head is not good enough and with most Asian countries such laws are only strictly (not always, but most of the time) enforced within city limits but not in rural areas.
There should be a standard and people should be asked (no, I didn’t say fined ) to secure the helmet properly.
Else it’s like putting a seat belt in your car dangling over your shoulder but not latching it …
More than often I see entire families on one motobike, parents with helmets but the kids don’t have any. The thought of “what happens if” is scary and I cannot understand why the parents obviously don’t care about their children’s safety.
They might have some reason or excuse, but I don’t think it’s acceptable.
Things are wrong here, perhaps unfair even but it’s difficult to change it as you can’t wipe out corruption in a week or so and it will take a long time to convince people to change their attitude.
Even worse than the kids on the scooters without crash helmets is the kids standing on car seats with their heads and upper bodies sticking up through the sun roof enjoying the breeze as Dad or Mum speeds along the twisting mountain roads. I see it every day on the road to Wulai (when it’s not raining). It absolutely horrifies me – it’s all I can do to resist the temptation to flag them down and bawl out the parents for their criminal irresponsibility (but of course I know that, here in Taiwan, it’s “none of my business”). All it needs is for the driver to suddenly step on the brake (we all know how often that is necessary here) and junior either goes flying through the air or suffers internal injuries from being rammed hard against the edge of the sunroof opening.
If a policeman in the U.K. saw such a thing, he’d stop that car faster than you could say “Jack Robinson”. And the parent(s) would be in deep, deep shit, as they damn well ought to be for so mindlessly endangering their kiddy’s life and safety.
You only need a law to stop people injuring others. no need to legislate against people injuring themselves.
Infact, it might have some beneficial evolutionary side-effects.
And talking about the Soloman Islands ambassador, I was really pleased to read that the police took him down to the station and apparently gave him a hard time before they were made to understand about his diplomatic immunity and forced to let him go scot free. It annoys me like hell that embassy staff can get away with stuff like that. Drunk driving is the worst of the worst criminal behaviour on the roads. I’m all in favour of long custodial sentences for those who cause accidents while driving under the influence.
You’re right. I think we should remove diplomatic immunity for all crimes that you find objectionable. Just out of curiousity, what would be left?
Basically, all crimes are objectionable unless the perpetrator had a compelling reason for believing that his actions were justified, which could hardly be so in the case of drunk driving or other traffic offences. And I speak as one who spent several years working as a barrister defending people who I thought should be punished for crimes I had no doubt they had committed – and sometimes it almost hurt more to defend them successfully than to lose the case (distaste at injustice being stronger than a dent in one’s professional pride). That’s why I gave up that line of work.
And by the way, I think that the concept of diplomatic immunity is outdated and no longer serves its original purpose, and should therefore be abolished.
Everybody hates lawyers. They even hate themselves.
Yeah, well, not are crimes are objectionable. What about the victimless ones? Countries that call themelves advanced prosecute drivers for being “drunk in charge” of their vehicle. In the UK even opening the car door with your keys while over the limit can lose you your licence – even if you had no intention of driving the vehicle. That’s just a sad a state of affairs as letting a drunk driver go free.
Well this ex-lawyer certainly didn’t hate himself when he was an active member of that profession. But he had such severe reservations about the ethics and social value of lawyering in all its forms that he had little hesitation in giving it up and moving on to something totally different.
Every crime has a victim. Sometimes it’s not an individual or individuals but social order, the collective interests of society, and so on.
Detaining people for being drunk in charge before they have driven off in their car is a lot more effective way of protecting life and limb than waiting until the drunk has had the chance to endanger others on the road. The act of taking control of the car by climbing into the driving seat and sticking the key in the ignition is sufficient evidence of the intent.