I’m willing to cede the sidewalk that isn’t covered by a building overhang to scooters. But the area underneath the overhang should be for pedestrians only.
ok Ped,
You have got a deal!
Hey Alien,
I think it would be mighty amusing to see you with a sandwich board on, protesting about the scooter riders! Let me know if you make any up and i’ll join you. personally i love riding around on a bike,(not that i own one) but i’d wear one just for the looks we’d get! What else is there to do other than entertain the locals! Only thing is we’d get stuck crossing the roads coz of all the scooters parked up!
Ms Slone? (sp)
Why don’t we wear sandwich boards and protest the sandwiches in Taipei, instead?
Wouldn’t it be nice to find a good sandwich? Turkey, sprouts, avocado, vinagrette, red ripe tomatos, good german mustard.
Entertaining locals on my bike was easier before I got that little bell and I’d have to make barnyard noises. Now they pounce out of my way. Ker-Ching! In fact, one little old bloke hit me in the ass with a pebble the other day.
I went back and growled at him, and he backed off and said ‘kai wan shao’, giggling.
When I wear the helmet, I swear, I feel like a deranged mormon.
But back to scooters on sidewalks: pestilence, plague!
And the rest of you going on about cars omitting more, UP YOURS! at least they don’t ride on the sidewalks too! well, most of the time…hahaha…i love taipei, i really, really, do! really!
I think the riding scooters on the sidewalks just speaks to a larger issue … the lack of respect for following the law, and the haphazard enforcement of it. There’s even a chengyu that I mention to my Taiwanese friends all the time about this, and they agree that it’s a problem for Taiwanese … “zhi-1 fa-3 fan-4 fa-3” (literally, know-law-violate-law, or “knowingly violate the law”).
I walk a lot, too, while my scooter riding friends don’t. And yes, I think a lot of the scooters belch out huge amounts of pollution because they’re often old and tatty, while most car drivers at least have newer engines which have gone through smog tests, right?
Bullshit!!
Just compare the miles per gallon for a scooter (150CC)and a car(2+L), and alot of motorbikes in Taipei are new and have fuel efficent engines. How many 2 stroke engines do you see around the place.
all cars that do emissions tests, which means they have to reduce the percent of smoke etc, cannot reduce ommisions to that of a 125CC.
If X amount of gasoline enters the 2L engine then X(125/2000) enters the 125CC engine.
Simply math says that XY exits the 2L engine and XY(125/2000) exits the 125CC engine, at the same revs and having the same cyclinder type.
Cat convertors only reduce your Horse Power and not really ommisions, although they are a step in the right direction, and all motorbikes are fitted with restricters, they make appear like they are doing good but so do cigarette filters in cigarettes !!
I’m not blaming you for wanting convenience, but I am a bit miffed by those who think it’s the only alternative to getting around in Taipei. It’s not! Like I said, I’ve never had a scooter and I manage just fine.
The other alternative is to cycle a bike, and endure the dirt and balls sweat rash in the summer(although the Mormons seemed to have figured that one out), else walk to work, which is fine if you live down the road 10 mins away. But am I expected to walk to work
Let me see
5.00 wake up
5.20 leave apartment
5.22 exit door and start walking to work
8.00 reach the office
5.00 finish work
8.00 reach home
8.30 eat dinner
9.00 XXXXX
Wow !!! I really want to walk to work in the morning!!!
And the way most people walk in Taiwan on the streets, I almost run them over when I am walking down the street.
‘Tzuo Kai’ is an expression that comes to mind.
If you walk into bikes and get bump them don’t blame the bike…in the same way if you hit your hand with a hammer don’t blame the hammer… go to an optician to check your eye sight or stop sleeping and walking together
There are much worse things to walk into in taipei than a motorbike like an open sewer, the footpath that goes nowhere but off a ledge and TGI Fridays( and the Mormons of course)
Whe is it with these little old ladies and their fucking umbrellas? Are these people genetically engineered to try to gouge out people’s eyes at every possible opportunity? I’m not sure if it’s just senility or a total lack of manners and respect for pedestrians within injury range of them.
Why don’t they fucking look before opening an umbrella on a crowded sidewalk? Am I supposed to wear eye-protection gear just to walk down the street?
Some bitch whipped out a concealed umbrella in front of me earlier, held it up and pressed the open button (it was a sping-loaded jobby) and nearly took my head off.
Added to which, we were under cover of the shopfronts and it WASN’T EVEN RAINING.
The real reason that Taiwan uses so much tile is that the island is home to the largest tile mine in the world. And the quality is very high too. After the raw tiles are smelted into various shapes and shades, they are applied to anything that isn’t moving.
Well i used the MRT/buses for a year here in Taipei and only got a scooter recently. I agree there are some fools on scooters racing around in Taipei, but thats life. Ban scooters outright? I’d like to see Taipei cope with that. What then everyone goes and buys a car? Public transport is great, and the MRT is wonderful, but sometimes, a lot of the time, it dont cut it. If im going a short distance, ill walk. I drive on the side walk, do i consider it rude? No. Why not? Coz if i had to PUSH the damn thing, it would take me 10 times longer and I mean it, plus the pedestrians would feel like kicking my arse. Scooters can be a pain here sometimes, but dont ban them, just educate/strict laws to the riders. I definitely dont think parking on the sidewalks should be strictly enforced/completely 100% banned, I cant imagine where everyone would park then.
Ask yourself: “do I NEED a scooter?”. Remember: the question is NOT “would a scooter make my life more convenient?”. If the answer is “yes”, fair enough. If the answer is “no”, why not buy a bicycle? Walk? Use public transit?
This island has a major pollution problem. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
Lately I’ve been turning my bike off at red lights, especially those really long ones at rush hour. Maybe if everybody started doing it, I wouldn’t have to take those shallow “half-breaths” while waiting at intersections during the rush hour.
I ride on sidewalks!!
But I always give the right of way to pedestrians, do so slowly, and only when I’m looking for a parking space. I think it would be assenine if I had to go to ZhongXiao E road, get off my moped, and then push it back and forth for 30 minutes while I try to find a space (it takes so long cause the gov’t offers so few legal spaces!).
It’s illegal now, and they’ve started enforcing it. And I’m more than willing to pay the rare $500 ticket or whatever in exchange for me saving time and blocking less pedestrians.
By the way, I agree with the above poster; scooters SAVE Taipei. Can you imagine if everyone actually had a car instead of a scooter… hee hee! Plus they ARE much less polluting then cars, as long as you … maintain… it once it in a while. (I remember when I first lived in Tainan years back – it took me forever to find out how to say ‘maintain’ in Chinese… it wasn’t a widespread concept at the time).
I was under the impression that two-stroke bikes, which account for the lion’s share of scooters here, were bigger polluters than cars.
Was I misinformed? Is there a definitive expert out there?
Well, I’m not an expert! That’s just what I’ve heard from many sources (not to perpetuate rumors or anything ). I do know that the difference in pollution (the harmful portion of exhaust) between a tuned engine and an untuned one is around 16:1. I think that might be a bigger issue than what type of engine…
quote[quote] Ask yourself: "do I NEED a scooter?". [/quote]What a load of bollocks! Do you need a TV? A computer, a sofa, a washing machine? Course you don’t. i don’t need a scooter either, but it’s the only way I can conveniently get to work and means I can be anywhere in the city so quickly and out of it in the weekends and so have a much higher quality of life.
quote:
why not buy a bicycle? Walk? Use public transit?Coz I don’t want a bicycle, and couldn’t ride it to half the places I want to, walking will get me nowhwere and I sure as hell aren’t going to quadruple my commuting time on crowded hot buses everday.
quote:
I was under the impression that two-stroke bikes, which account for the lion's share of scooters here, were bigger polluters than cars. Was I misinformed? Is there a definitive expert out there?I’m not exactly an expert, but ye, they are much more polluting. Are they the large majority of scooters though? I’d say only about a half these days.
bri
Agreed, I dont need a lot of stuff, like money Ok thats going a bit far but still, dont need ADSL or this computer or the mobile phone. I want a scooter, is that bad? Its how I use the scooter that counts. Just go back to our home countires. Im not saying all cities back home have great public transport, but a lot of us probably had or still have a car back there. Why? Coz its just so much easier to get things done. Public transport is good when im going to a congested place like Taipei Main train station to do some window shopping etc. Yes i could ride my bike but on a busy weekend nite i just wanna take it easy. I dont think its a sin to own a scooter or car.
Why ban scooters? Why not just force people to be considerate drivers. Make traffic fines double each time you get one. Make real traffic laws. Enforce those laws. Strictly. Its ok to be a little Singaporish, right?
I’ve also heard that two-stroke scooter are far more pollutant (toxic?) than cars. They are the same inefficient little engines that power large lawn mowers in the US (Land of the Free Space).
I’ve also been told that the pollution from these little guys isn’t as dark (as in visible). Heh heh, silent but deadly.
Where can we look this up?
By the way, I vote for scooter drivers to push their bikes on the sidewalk. It may look silly, but its safer
Sign me,
The Survivor of Too Many Close Calls
When people start buying big motorcycles, thanks to WTO entry, imagine their joy of cooperation when that swell mayor of Taipei orders them to push their 750cc bikes up and down the sidewalk looking for a spot in the 36-degree summer sun.
Did someone just say “bikers have attitudes”? or am I thinking of repo men?
I think one thing that would solve the safety issue of motorcycles riding on the sidewalk is if everyone learned the ancient “here comes a motorcycles racing towards me; I shall innocently stretch in a way that levels my elbow with the driver’s nose” kung-fu move. It always seems to get them to slow down are drive a bit farther away…