Currently shopping for transport, and I keep seeing ads touting a lack of papers as a positive ADVANTAGE e.g. “There are no “papers” for the bike which really means that you don’t need to worry about getting traffic tickets in the mail.”
I take this with a liberal pinch of salt, but its my understanding that if a vehicle misses its (2-yearly?) license renewal by six months, there is no way it can be re-licensed and its legally scrap, so an unlicensed vehicle isn’t necessarily stolen. I tried to buy an apparently abandoned scooter in my basement. Turned out the owner was dead and though her husband said he liked the idea of someone using the scooter he was apparently unable to re-license it.
The obvious questions are:-
How do they catch you? There seems to be no equivalent to the UK tax disc so its presumably by a police computer check of your license plate, random or as a result of an accident or violation.
If they do catch you, how stiff are the penalties?
By analogy with the UK, where being uninsured is a much more serious offence than no tax/mot “safety” check certificate, is it possible to insure an unregisted vehicle, or are all these also uninsured?
the short answers are:
1.) They catch you when you are pulled at random roadblocks, for traffic offenses, when you crash etc…
2.) The penalties are far stiffer than the minimal NT$ saving on a paperless bike is worth IMHO…
3.) The only insurance the vast majority of road users have is the cheap and cheerful, compulsory 3rd party type, and no you wouldn’t be able to process this insurance for an unregistered and/or stolen bike…
all in all… riding an unregistered (and/or stolen) bike in Taiwan is about as good an idea as it is in the first world… so that’ll be “quite a stupid idea” then…
the short answers are:
1.) They catch you when you are pulled at random roadblocks, for traffic offenses, when you crash etc…
2.) The penalties are far stiffer than the minimal NT$ saving on a paperless bike is worth IMHO…
3.) The only insurance the vast majority of road users have is the cheap and cheerful, compulsory 3rd party type, and no you wouldn’t be able to process this insurance for an unregistered and/or stolen bike…
all in all… riding an unregistered (and/or stolen) bike in Taiwan is about as good an idea as it is in the first world… so that’ll be “quite a stupid idea” then… [/quote]Thanks for helping out, Plasmatron. I’ll wait a few days until I’m sure that the OP has seen your reply then I’ll merge this into the other thread.
