Driving to the office in the morning normally sees me doing the usual: looking with an ever-critical eye at the ‘locals’ (total lack of) driving skills’. Saw people doing some real crazy things and a couple of times I caught myself muttering things like “typical”, “stupid bastard”, “where the f*** did you get your licence?”, etc. :fume:
Sounds familiar?
For once, this morning, I looked at my own superior driving skills. I must have adopted or adapted to the local driving style ’ cause I made a skillful (illegal?) u-turn from the extreme right handside lane on Kuang Fu Road, double parked in front of 7-Eleven to buy a pint of milk, and ran the last orange light (bastard thing changed at the last minute and I did look for traffic and it was only 06:30 anyway!) just before I got to the office.
I hear you Stan… more often than not I’m happy to drive about reluctantly driving “properly” and more or less within the scope of common sense decent driving that I would use when in the first world… It’s just on those days (Friday evenings around 6pm) where you can sense the tone and behaviour of your fellow road users devolves into a dangerously inconsiderate “f*ck you, me first” free for all, that I find myself adopting a “when in Rome” approach… not much point in Marquess of Queensberry rules in a lead pipe and knuckle duster street fight really, but I guess that’s what everyone else is thinking too… :loco:
In Oregon, U-Turns are illegal ANYWHERE. GRRRRRRRRRRRR
Pisses me off…so instead of making a U-Turn you have to turn down a side street, pull into a driveway or parking lot and then go back on the road in the direction you want to go. :loco:
Friggen idiotic overly lawful oregonians!!!
But! Being a native Californian…I just can’t shake my old ways…today I made 2 obvious illegal U-turns.
After the 2nd one, I saw red and blue lights in my rear view mirror…oh shit! Lucky for me he whized by me and pulled over the guy in front of me who failed to yield 100% to a pedestrian crossing the street.
Oregon is craking down hard on that now. The new law (or rather the new way police are interpreting the law) is that you have to wait fully stopped until a pedestrian is 100% back up on the sidewalk from crossing the street…this includes J-walkers and even if you are way the fuck on the other side of the road opposite from the crossing person.
You may all be tired of crazy lawless Taiwanese drivers, but I am counting the days until I can get the hell away from these overly enforced rediculous laws in Oregon and back into the wild wild east! :moped:
I would argue that by driving local (within reason, whatever that is) you’re actually safer. Defensive driving is usually met here with complete lack of comprehentions. They just can figure out what you’re going to do next.
Defensive driving works everywhere. It just means anticipation, prediction and planning. It’s primarily a mental process and other drivers will probably not even notice you’re doing it, apart from perhaps your lane positioning.
It doesn’t mean you have to drive like an old granny (not that all old grannies drive slowly: my driving instructor back in the UK certainly didn’t). It means being flexible and adapting your speed etc. to suit the situation.
I summoned all my powers of defensive riding when I took my mum round central and north Taiwan by motorbike. I think I did all right because she felt relaxed and wasn’t bothered by the traffic, though I thought it was pretty heavy at times.
Hmmm…dunno…I’ve found that the local driver expect a certain amount of “aggression” when driving. I’ve found that if you drive with “authority”, people are less likely to cut in front of your leaving 1" of space or turn left across traffic.
For example if you stop and wait at a blinking light, or come to full stop at a stop sign (I got rear-ended doing that), they don’t know what to do with you. It’s like you’re doing something they are not expecting.
Defensive driving doesn’t mean driving timidly. If people don’t drive assertively enough then yes that can be dangerous.
Re the possibility of rear-ending, I find that the advice my old driving instructor gave me still works well: slow down to a stop slowly, but pull off smartly. That is of course as long as it doesn’t look as if some idiot is going to nip in front of you as you slow down, in which case you have to compromise. I also find it helpful to do a light double tap on the brakes to warn drivers behind that I’m going to slow down soon.
[quote=“joesax”]Defensive driving doesn’t mean driving timidly. If people don’t drive assertively enough then yes that can be dangerous.
Re the possibility of rear-ending, I find that the advice my old driving instructor gave me still works well: slow down to a stop slowly, but pull off smartly. That is of course as long as it doesn’t look as if some idiot is going to nip in front of you as you slow down, in which case you have to compromise. I also find it helpful to do a light double tap on the brakes to warn drivers behind that I’m going to slow down soon.[/quote]
Well, if you do that in Taiwan … everyone behind you will slam on the brakes …
Yesterday I went to Taizhong and when coming back up the section from Taizhong untill Fongyuan is incredibly dangerous at night … actually freeway #1 is dangerous, you have all these moronic binlang chewing truckdrivers in their green trucks transporting anything from veggies to steel wire … they realy think they are on a race course, oddly enough they all drive green trucks, not small blue ones. So, I was driving the leagal speed of 90 Km/h … well these guys went a little faster, trying to weave trough traffic … but as a good player a managed to cut a few of them
… when arriving at Fongyuan I decided it’s been enough fun and turned on to the #4 and later taking the #3 freeway up north … relaxed driving … although a little over the speedlimit but I managed to not get caught by the ‘radar’ police that where visibly present along the side of the freeway
I also saw some remarkable slow drivers, going 60-70 on the second lane
So, yes … sometimes I brake the rules and adapt to the local driving styles …
Like Joesax said, you have to be assertive but defensive driving does work here and can often give you the cutting edge against other drivers.
Looking at the road ahead of you - I mean at least 10 car legnths down means that you can often anticipate the moves of the drivers infront of you, including the stupid and idiotic moves.
That being said, I break the law all the time here. I speed. I do “U” turns (they’re not illegal in the UK anyway, unless specifically stated) and I Jay walk all the time. I never use the box to turn right at a big junction on a bike because that is just a ridiculously stupid and dangerous law.
However, I never break dangerous laws like running reds, pulling out without looking, double parking and driving in the scooter lane/hard shoulder.
Driving in Taiwan is all about using judgement in the best possible way. Anticipating everything that could possibly happen and positioning you vehicle in such a position that you always have somewhere to go in the event that you are heading for a collision.
(It doesn’t always work though. Two months ago I got T-boned on my bike - I was hardly moving and a car decided to turn left and do a U-turn and he went straight into me).
I used to take people running reds as a personal insult to myself. I’d always chase them and try to give them a scare if I could. Recetently I tried to calm myself down…and I found the only way I could not allow others running reds to bother me…was if I did it myself. I run on average 6 reds on my way to work…it’s about a 20 minute drive.
And let’s face it people…running a red in Taiwan (if done properly, stopping/looking) is safer than going through a green…due to the people who are improperly running reds. :loco:
[quote=“Mordeth”]
And let’s face it people…running a red in Taiwan (if done properly, stopping/looking) is safer than going through a green…due to the people who are improperly running reds. :loco:[/quote]Sounds bad but it’s true. It takes me 2 hours and 15 minutes to get to Kenting, that’s if I do a stop-look and go on about 30 red lights along the way. If I didn’t, it would be a 3 hour ride. They put lights in the stupidest places in the country, it’s retarded. I also drive in the car lane a lot when I need to go faster, I find it much safer. The scooter lane is a disaster waiting to happen if you go fast as morons always merge in from everywhere without looking.
After checking out this thread a shocking realization hit me…8 years of driving in the US versus nearly 20 here.
I drive fast, curse myself silly when stupid things are done in front of me…But I NEVER run red lights anywhere, it’s asking for death guys
After so many years driving here, you can’t even imagine how many of us Lau-wai’s I’ve seen get whacked while thinking that they truly understand how the amoeba traffic system works. We’ve got an American down here locally right now in ICU, who thought he’d do a local move last Saturday night and got smoked…It only takes a second, and he’ll be recovering for months to come.
Last year at the Hoping for Peace festival, I was enjoying the sunshine and good music (Thanks Paogao/Sandman) when I started checking out some of the other foreigners…Virtually every one of them had (fucking nasty too) battle scars from accidents here…My conclusion from this is that many people decide to “When in Rome” but don’t really have a decent grip on how it all works.
For example: You might well know which red lights to “float” when in your local neighborhood, but when you are out on your roadtrip, how the hell would you know? Start looking at the locals who do this, they are the ones with brand new cars full of bondo, and putting others at risk through sheer selfishness…Why would anyone want to follow this example?
I just got back from Kenting, and on the few times I went into town the sound of sirens punctuated the air everywhere I went.
Please, running reds is playing Russian Roulette with your life. It ain’t worth it for the few minutes you save on road time, especially if you are on a motorcycle.
I’d post more, but I have to go visit my friend in ICU, who at over 60 with 7 broken ribs and a busted clavicle is probably wondering why the hell he didn’t wait for 5 seconds for those two cars to move on… :s
I hear you MJB. I think there’s a clear distinction between running a red light like you will witness commonly in Taiwan and using a red light as if it were a stop sign. Back home, stop signs are considered perfectly acceptable at many different intersections. Here they use traffic lights instead. If you stop and look both ways, it’s just as dangerous as following the law for stop signs back home.
I only run lights when I can see far enough both ways to do it safely and I do not run them forcing other people to break or slow down when they have a green. I think it’s quite safe to use many lights as if they were one way stop signs but hey! This is Taiwan and it IS against the law…Nothing I can say will make it right.
[quote=“Mordeth”]I’d also like to add that I don’t run reds when someone else is already stopped at the red.
[/quote]I do, you should see some of the intersections between Kaohsiung and Linyuan. They are all T- intersections where traffic can only merge from the left. So you sit there next to the curb, no one in sight for about a mile and there they are just waiting like robots. One can literally sit and wait at about 20 different red lights on that road without seeing a single vehicle using the green. Waste of time, waste of electricity, bad for the environment and just plain unnecessary.
I got into three accidents in Taiwan and each time it was when I had a green light…mordeth hits the nail on the head when he says that properly running a red light is safer than cruising through a green. I never even had a close call once while running a red, but close calls when I have a green light are common. Go figure…
The one big danger with running reds…and it needs to be said before the mods shut us down . Is that once you start doing it…it becomes a habit developing action.
And one day you might be half asleep and slow down for a red that never has any cross traffic and then go again without properly looking and BAM…you’re dead…and it’s 100% your fault. And this could of been avoided if you never ran that light to begin with.
You see the Taiwanese doing it all the time…there is a light that’s relatively “safe” to run. And they get so used to running it that with time they stop looking. I’m betting in the begining they did look…
[quote=“Mordeth”]The one big danger with running reds…and it needs to be said before the mods shut us down . Is that once you start doing it…it becomes a habit developing action.
And one day you might be half asleep and slow down for a red that never has any cross traffic and then go again without properly looking and BAM…you’re dead…and it’s 100% your fault. And this could of been avoided if you never ran that light to begin with.
You see the Taiwanese doing it all the time…there is a light that’s relatively “safe” to run. And they get so used to running it that with time they stop looking. I’m betting in the begining they did look…[/quote]
I’m not interested in shutting this down, in fact, it’s a terrific sounding board for seeing how all of us integrate into the local driving community.
There is no doubt whatsoever that some of the red lights are put in the most idiotic places imaginable, Bobpine quoted excellent examples on the road to Kenting. There are at least half a dozen lights there that serve seemingly no purpose other than to make people wait.
I still sit through them all, and can’t bring myself to violate this last single rule. Turn right on red? Do it all the time. Exceed the speed limit? Everyday. Pass on Double yellow? Yup.
It would be interesting to see how far people go to “immerse” themselves driving, and more than just running reds. I’d like to hear more people’s opinion on their degree of illegal comfortability when driving here.
I’m guilty of a few past offences. These days I try and drive with a bit more respect for my fellow drivers. What with me kids’n all, I try to maintain a steady beam. That said, i will confront the malcreants, foreigner and native alike.
But I certainly don’t act all juvenile (like perhaps I did 5 years ago),and try and chase down the perpetrators of any supposed hostile auto act.
Some folks gotta learn that driving is not only about speed, and/or projection of force. It’s about getting somewhere with minimal resistance…
Lucky for me he whized by me and pulled over the guy in front of me who failed to yield 100% to a pedestrian crossing the street. 
:moped:
