I seem to get alot of people who give me a stupid ignorance is bliss smile as they look right at me and drive on the wrong side of the road. :loco:
but whenever I feel too bad about the traffic here, I just need to remind myself of bangkok, where 4 different directions of traffic drive on the same road, or India, where trucks don’t slow down for anything except for animals and the roads don’t exist half the time.
Traffic is definitely much worse in India than here, but part of that has to do with the terrible, tiny roads in India. Not sure about Bangkok, though; I lived there for three years and drove a moped around. It was dangerous, but I wouldn’t even think about driving a scooter here in Taiwan – I’ve seen far more accidents here than I ever saw in Bangkok.
The biggest difference is that BKK drivers - though much faster and seemingly insane - are actually much more alert when they’re driving. Taiwanese drivers move at slower speeds than in BKK, but they are simply clueless as to what’s going on around them - much like zombies. I’d drive a moped in BKK over Taiwan any day.
I always figured that someone in the highways bureau or whatever had a stake in a paint company, or a brother who owned one. Either that or the concept is to corral all the pedestrians into one target-rich environment so the cars didn’t have to look everywhere for someone to run over. I do my little bit to add to the anarchy by crossing wherever the fuck I feel. The pedestrian crossings are obviously fakes, so cross where you like, since those with vehicles don’t pay the crossings any respect either.
To improve traffic flow they should start replacing traffic lights with Uk-style roundabouts (called traffic-circles in the US, but i don’t think there are many of them over there). I would love to see the local drivers deal with a large roundabout with multiple exits. Could sit there and watch the chaos all day.
I don’t think changing the system is the answer at all. (Although there are some changes needed) Laws must be enforced, probably have lunatics driving the wrong way on the circle.
There is a big roundabout at the DunHua/RenAi Rds intersection. Has lots of traffic lights on it though. I have seen a few scooters go down there from people not going around the roundabout but by trying to take as straight as a route as possible through the roundabout and then cutting straight into the path of a car or another scooter. It is kind of fun watching them try to cut straight in front of a bus to get off the roundabout.
But if there were more roundabouts, like we have in Australia, they are everywhere from where I am from, you could just imagine the scooters looking at the other roundabout entrances and then going as fast as they can to beat those others onto the roundabout, or they will just do what they already do, just enter the roundabout without giving way to traffic already on it… And you probable would have people driving the wrong way round. I face those that already do that every morning on a regular straight road.
Yes, you could set your camera up and record the chaos all day long then send it into AXN for an episode of “Taiwan’s Whackiest Drivers”
With regard to traffic circles (round-abouts), there’s a big one in downtown Hsinchu, with multiple exits and no lights at all. One Sunday I sat on a park bench watching pretty ladies walk by, then in the distance, at the circle I saw an accident. Then about 20 minutes later was another accident. After a while, I stopped watching the women and took in the amusement of watching the locals zip from the inner-most lane to the outer-most lane without the slightest glance left or right to see who was there. IN all, I counted 4 accidents and lots of near-misses within a 90-minute period. I can’t believe they won’t allow right-turn-on-red and put up traffic lights in the middle of a country road but yet create a no-holes-barred unrestricted round-about in the center of congested downtown traffic. Aiyo! As someone correctly noted already, they seem not to have survival skills or driving ettiquete and as another correctly noted, they only memorize road rules for the test, with no instruction either in a book or by an actual instructor at the training course itself, on such habits. I know because I went to driving school here after buying a car. I went through the whole nine yards, took the check-ride exam and the written test, too. Noticeably absent from the driving course, was anything concerning common courtesy or evasive action for road hazards.
After wasting many hours having to study for the license test, I feel I know less now than when I started about driving due to the fact that my brain is now full of useless information like how much fines are, non-existant signs, and crazy hand signals :s The test really teaches you nothing practical, and the situation is made worse by the fact that most rules of the road need to be learned through experience and common sense. The car driving test itself focuses mainly on parking and backwards driving 
, while stressing no important principles such as turning in the proper lanes and merging with traffic. 
At first when I came here I felt that the drivers were pretty good to be able to manage so much chaos compared to the way things are in America, but the downside of the picture is that there are plenty of bad apples who just can’t grasp a good hold of how to do things on thier own.
You’d be surprised how much more “courteous” Taiwanese drivers become when your car is much bigger, heavier and more powerful than theirs. In this driving culture, where larger vehicles routinely bully more vulnerable ones, driving an SUV makes sense. Having an elevated driving position might just save your pelvis too, when some jackass decides to run a red light and T-bones you.
There is nothing more fun than driving a Canter3500 (especially when it’s a rental ) in Taipei. Don’t get me wrong, I still hate to go to Taipei, but it releases some stress when I do in a blue truck. 
I Even burned a red light last time, but it was an honest mistake. 
Like the bloke who started this thread said, half of the problem at traffic lights stems from the fact that they stay red for far too long. My wife recently saw a program on TVBS about how long people of different nationalities are willing to stop at a red light. British people have a threshold of 35 seconds, according to them, and the longest red in this country is 225 seconds.
It absolutely gives me the shits when my light has turned green and there are still people driving into the yellow box from the intersecting road at a snail’s pace, fully five seconds after their light has turned red. OK if you’re out of the way quickly it’s not so bad (did I just write that?) but when they are in a jam, they block the intersection for 15-20 seconds and it is just selfish and rude.
Why do they do it? First, they don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves. Second, they are so close and they know if they stop they will be there for 66 seconds+. Who wants that? I thought the countdown on red was useful at first but now I see it purely as a good gauge as to whether I should jump the red or not. In Aus and the UK I have never seen a red countdown and I believe that it’s safer that way. If you don’t see “99…98…97…” you would be less inclined to go through on red I believe.
But as we all say time and again, the big problem is just the driving culture and totaly piss poor training. My wife’s friend got her licence, and then bought an old car “so that she could learn how to drive and not worry about it getting smashed. She once scraped the wall all the way from one floor to the next in the basement parking.” Can you believe it? Get the licence, THEN learn how to drive. It’s a joke!
“piss poor training” in the sense that the wrong things (backwards S) are emphasized in the exam, rather than WHO HAS RIGHT OF WAY and WHY you should yield to the person with right of way.
We foolishly believe that right of way is based on something other than who got there first. Perhaps we should all stop being narrow minded and open our minds to the possibility that our way isn’t the only way.
OK that’s never going to happen but I hope it stops pissing me off soon. Otherwise I’m going to waste a lot of energy every time I get on the road swearing at people, saying “unbelievable” to myself and shaking my head in disbelief.
If you can’t beat them join them. Just teach yourself to drive like a total cunt and it may stop being so annoying having to yield to that old farmer’s wife on a 50cc scooter merging in front of you at 30mph without looking.
[quote=“jaame”]OK that’s never going to happen but I hope it stops pissing me off soon. Otherwise I’m going to waste a lot of energy every time I get on the road swearing at people, saying “unbelievable” to myself and shaking my head in disbelief.
[/quote]
I’m glad I’m not the only one. Driving here so enrages me that a perpetual stream of obscenities and filth spews out my mouth from the time I leave my parking space to well after I’ve reached my destination.
[quote=“barfomcgee”][quote=“jaame”]OK that’s never going to happen but I hope it stops pissing me off soon. Otherwise I’m going to waste a lot of energy every time I get on the road swearing at people, saying “unbelievable” to myself and shaking my head in disbelief.
[/quote]
I’m glad I’m not the only one. Driving here so enrages me that a perpetual stream of obscenities and filth spews out my mouth from the time I leave my parking space to well after I’ve reached my destination.[/quote]
Damn, how can you live like that? You should travel by taxi or bus. :loco:
Go with the flow,
Give a little, take a little…
Taxis are too expensive to use on a daily basis and buses are too sporadic here in Taichung. Driving is a necessary evil of living outside of Taipei/Kaohsiung. Anyway, it’s not quite as bad as I made it seem - though the sheer idiocy of many drivers here never ceases to amaze me.
Taxis are too expensive to use on a daily basis and buses are too sporadic here in Taichung. Driving is a necessary evil of living outside of Taipei/Kaohsiung. Anyway, it’s not quite as bad as I made it seem - though the sheer idiocy of many drivers here never ceases to amaze me.[/quote]
Nothing against you dude. Here is the problem, It’s the way it is in Taiwan. I have spent so many years here that at one point,either you get with the program or, you complain on this website. If you choose to complain on this website, it will not change anything and you will get more resentful.
If you ask guys who have been here for long enough, for sure they are not happy with the driving here, but they have learned to live with it and they don’t waste one second about it that might make their life miserable.
Taxis are too expensive to use on a daily basis and buses are too sporadic here in Taichung. Driving is a necessary evil of living outside of Taipei/Kaohsiung. Anyway, it’s not quite as bad as I made it seem - though the sheer idiocy of many drivers here never ceases to amaze me.[/quote]
Nothing against you dude. Here is the problem, It’s the way it is in Taiwan. I have spent so many years here that at one point,either you get with the program or, you complain on this website. If you choose to complain on this website, it will not change anything and you will get more resentful.
If you ask guys who have been here for long enough, for sure they are not happy with the driving here, but they have learned to live with it and they don’t waste one second about it that might make their life miserable.[/quote]
I’ve been here long enough to realize that traffic here always makes my life miserable. 
Taxi drivers and bus drivers are just a couple of reasons I get mad every day. I think complaining on this site is a good idea. Ranting online is a little less unproductive than doing it on the road. I almost ended up in a fist fight the other day when I made my one fingered complaint to a Taipei scooterist because of his poor, selfish idiotic form and bad attitude, only to have him insist on taking me to a police station for showing him disrespect.
Sigh! You see its coming out in a non violent, councilor’s couch kind of way, and nobody even needs shed blood! 
Of course it will never stop pissing me off but yes, ranting on this website is a very good idea.
Just knowing that other people share your pain or simply understand the words that are coming out of your mouth makes it easier.
That’s half of the reason it pisses me off so much to see totally tossy driving. First, they are blissfully unaware they have done anything wrong and second, I can’t tell them because I can’t speak Chinese and they can’t understand English, except “fuck”, which can get me into trouble.
Fuck those fucking cunts!