Whilst out riding today, I was startled by the stupidity of a certain driver who decided it would be appropriate to swerve into me on purpose to prevent me from overtaking him and then brake suddenly after he had managed to get infront. He was driving an Audi TT.
I caught up with him at the lights for a friendly “chat.”
After winding the window down I found he was a posh bloke in his 30’s He was Businessy; a yuppie type - he was wearing a suit and was well turned out and he had one of those silly blue tooth thingies in his ear.
He spoke absolutely impeccable English:
“What the fuck were you doing?” I asked.
He told me that I was using the car lane and the car lane is for cars, so that’s why he tried to knock me off.
I told him that the reason I am using the car lane (apart from the fact that the bike lane was full of busses, taxi’s and parked cars) was to distance myself from all the pricks riding scooters and weaving in and out.
He failed to understand this and continued to insist that it was my fault, and that he was justified in swerving into me.
How’s that? A well educated, business minded social climber acting like a low class blue truck or taxi driver.
The lack of consideration for one’s fellow driver/rider in Taiwan is truly amazing. As has been said before, almost 100% of car drivers here will have had scootering experience, but once they get behind their expensive wheels… Can anyone say “empathy”?
Good on you Dangermouse for fighting the good fight. I’m doing my bit down in Jiayi to educate the local dipshits not to mess with whitey (Note: males only, females get a “get out of jail” card).
You should’ve got right in his face and screamed at the top of your lungs, “Well, I think you’re fucking stupid! What do you think about that you fucking asshole! What are you going to do about that?!? Try to kill me again or something! Watch what you’re doing you simple fuck! You don’t go around trying to fucking kill people with your fucking vehicle! What do you think?!? Hmm?!?”
Right in his face. And then take down his license plate number and make a complaint at the police station to get some blood money out of him.
Just a suggestion. I know hindsight’s 20/20.
Anyway, my guess is that he isn’t really educated. Or he’s just simply stupid. I know some Taiwanese that would never do that.
What gets me boiling is the way some drivers refuse to fall into the back of the line of cars waiting to pass through the toll gate, especially when the roads are busy. Instead, they’d drive down next to the line of waiting cars, pick out a ‘target’, preferably as close as possible to the front of the line, and then proceed to nose their cars into the line. :fume:
So, I was just wondering. What do you do when your fellow road-users do this?
And a second bit of wondering: Why do people do this?
That is it exactly. It never ceases to amaze me. My personal favorite (most hated I suppose) is the ‘I’m not looking at you as I cut you off’ move. I yell. They hear. It doesn’t help though. It will happen again down the road.
Indeed, good work Dangermouse, even if it is in vain. I would never get physical with a female in traffic here, but she is gonna get yelled at, cursed at, and intimidated if my life was put in danger by her stupidity.
Well guys, I guess I left one important piece of information out.
What makes this incident even more annoying than the rest (which I usually ignore nowadays) is that this guy was an American. A white American (I assume from his accent).
An expat.
What a fucking Tosser.
His number plate: 91 99DQ
I wish I’d had my camera because his face would be splashed over every expat forum I could see.
With all the ranting and raving that goes on by foreigners here about Taiwanese and their driving, it truly is disappointing to find foreigners not only driving in the same fashion, but going out of their way to behave in a dangerous manner towards other road users.
If you’re reading this pal, you’re worse than the taxi drivers and blue truck drivers here because unlike them, you’re from a country which at least has a decent driver training program and you have more than likely had the importance of road safety drummed into you from an early age.
Doesn’t work. Unless his car actually hit you and caused damage, the police will do nothing. Even if you had to wipe out to avoid him, unless his vehicle HIT yours, they will do nothing. This I know from experience.
had a very similar experience myself DM… in the “cars only” center strip of the harbour end of the main drag in Taichung, early morning, road almost deserted, technically I shouldn’t have been there, but if some jerk in his mini-March or 800cc Smart car can be there I figure it’s fair enough for a 1200cc bike, plus it was about 6am and nobody was about… out of the blue some arse in a flash X5 SUV comes up from behind in a wail of revs, pulls up along side, almost passes, then swerves to try and knock me off my bike… the fcking clown apparently decided his was the only BMW that should be gracing the car lane… by sheer luck and ABS alone I managed to avoid his swerving attacks, and he speeds off only to stop at the red up ahead… I pulled up on his right hand side and pound on his passenger window, a frank but meaningful exchange along the lines of "what the fck do you think you are doing that was attempted murder!", “No bikes in the center lanes!”, “show me your fcking badge then.", "fcka you.”, “are you serious, you tried to kill me.”, “fcking foreigners, fcka you.”… at which stage the kickstand went down, I stepped off the bike and before I had both steel toe motocross booted feet on the ground the snivelling little prick had floored it, lurching forward with his handbrake on, which he eventually figured out releasing it just in time to carreen off, half out of control, through the red light… the only people who were around were a few university kids on scooters waiting for the light next to us who were laughing their arses off at the panicked exit of the arsehole…
on what is probably the most lawless island in the world, some are apparantly prepared to kill to uphold select traffic regulations… the mind boggles…
Revenge will be sweet! 91 99 DQ is programmed in my brain. And there are not many TT’s on the road hehe
Not because he has a TT (which seems to be leased refering to the plate)not because he is American, well or not educated.Not because
Simply because his attitude was even more rude than most of Taiwanese drivers.
i do not fucking care anymore of a sratch more or less on MY car, but I swore a few weeks ago that i will not tolerate any rudeness on the road anymore. I follow the rules, they follow the rules. if not, one will have to pay. i had it TO-TA-LY. No more. Call me dirty harry from now on.
as far as lane squeezers or pushers-in go, i just give them no space at all, and stare at them. close right up to the car in friont, and move sideways a bit too to close off any chance of their entry. of course, that only works in a (borrowed) car, not on the scooter.
they get pissed off and remarkably uptight though, so i’d think twice about doing it to someone who had a really beaten up car where an extra scratch would not be noticed.
the dork in the TT should have had his mirors at least dented, dm. he pushed in to you, right?
another interesting trick, which i was lucky enough to witness one day, is the pair of boltcutters appearing from some motorbike courier’s carry sack, and being used to cut off three of the prick’s tyre valves at the next possible interesection. that was rather funny. ratehr difficult to proceed on three flat tires.
91 99 DQ. Hee hee! Hey fuckwit? You reading this? You’re not very far from finding how much paint jobs cost for a TT, I’ll bet.
“The penalty for riding in the wrong lane is death.” You fucking tosspot.
… When asked why he committed the murder, the stupid rich foreigner mumbled: “He was driving in the wrong lane so I murdered him. It’s only fair.” Prosecutors are seeking a 25 year jail term for the halfwit bignose …
Even though what the TT fuckwitt did was not acceptable, we maynet hide some waiguoren scooter driverswhichalso act very “integrated”. I occasionaly cross some of then / you and must admit that theyalso take rather big risks.
Itis like “what the taiwanese cam, I can better” Be carefull guys!
I think it has a lot more to do with the perceived ‘pecking order’ than it does the law. “You’re not showing me due respect, therefore you must be punished” kind of thing.
I had a similar experience with a foreigner. Except the car was a Mercedes.
This was in Taipei, evening rush hour, I was riding my bicycle. I saw a car drive too fast in a corner, music blasting, he screeched to a halt at the lights. I decided to go up to him and just give him a look (he hadn’t actually caused any trouble to other drivers and to call him on the speeding would make me a hypocrite). I expected to see some young Taiwanese guy, rich daddy’s boy.
As I was approaching he rolled down the window. And just as we were side-by-side, a small projectile came flying out the window and hit my arm. My frist thought was: “OH, Yuck! I was hit by chewed up binlan! EWWWWWWW!!!”… my next thought was: “Wait, no, that’s great! Something I can blog about. YAY!”
So, I stopped and yelled out “WTF!”. But then when I turned around I saw that it’s a FURRINER! Total shock. He was just as stunned as I was and started muttering “Sorry, I’m so sorry… I didn’t see you…”
My anger changed to shock then changed to laughter. I couldn’t stop laughing. He was still shocked.
I said “Was that betelnut?!”
He: “No, no… chewing gum!” (As if that made spitting out the window ok!)
I said: “Oh, too bad. I was hoping I could tell this anecdote of a foreigner that spat betelnut on me. But if it’s just chewing gum…”
He was still apologizing. Didn’t find the missed opportunity for irony as funny as I did.
I said “Betelnut or gum, you shouldn’t spit out the window.” and left.
