|
|
| *Travel Tips>>>Taiwan Travel Tips |
I think the biggest turn off about Taiwan is the traffic.? |
Travel Info I mean, take 20 million people, none of whom are very good at waiting their turn, and who in fact raise 'cutting in line' to an art form. Now, put them all on motorcycles,.... some in big heavy trucks, and another third in cars, and you may have an inkling of what Taiwan traffic is like. Every day it is like clawing with death, and I think driving in Taiwan is like going out into the street amongst a bunch of wild animals. Lions and Tigers and Sharks and Bears. The driver's Ed teacher forgot to teach you humanity. Just a foreigners eye on things. It might be worse in China or Thailand, but really, I mean everyday I brush with death or disability out there. What can be done? Travel Tips Right, Taiwan traffic is bad. I have to admit that. The problem is it eats your soul. You go in and in order to survive you become the beast. Its like a war. The best thing you can do is work very close to your house and minimize the time spent in the trenches for your own safety-- or if you live in Taipei use the MRT. (I am very envious of the MRT. None of that here in Taichung.) Protect your lungs health: wear a facemask if you scoot. Even the 10NT cotton washable ones reduce particles 1/3. This pays off in less visits to the doctor. You can get a quality carbon filter mask now with N95 level protection at http://www.gflowmask.com/gflowenglish.ht... Watch the front wheels of the car next to you, and in front of you. Check your rear view mirror with a quick glance every 8 seconds if possible to see if that concrete truck is coming up fast or not. If a knot of big cars or if you find you are competing in a pack of scooters sometimes the best thing to do is to try and pull over and wait for 5-10 seconds until the knot is far ahead of you. The two point left hand turn rule, if you follow it, can help reduce your blood pressure and stress quite a lot. If you are coming to a red light, try and stop under shady trees far before the stop line but to the side of traffic flow, this can help keep you cooler under the nuclear radiation of the sun, amplified by the ground level ozone. This can also keep your temper down. Of course then you enter the shade fights/ shade races with the other scooters competing for scant shady areas every red light. But this is somewhat more fun than you, know, driving safely, and its easier to 'win'. The best technique is to know the logical order of operations: Taiwan's DRIVING ORDER OF OPERATIONS: 1. Size matters. Bigger is better. tanks get first priority. I have yet to see a tank, but if I did, I would get out of its way. 2. Then Semi-trailers that somehow got up to 40kph or higher (most likely you will only see this miracle on a highway and not inside the city). Dont even try and get near. if a convoy comes up behind you on the highway, take a deep breath and pull over. Wait until they are gone. Be happy you are alive. 3. Blue Trucks: the bane of everyones existence. If you get clipped, they are trained to stop, and roll back over you to finish you, to save their company and the Taiwanese medical system money. Don't mess with that. They need to deliver that stuff somewhere REALLY fast or else they lose money. That justifies everything out here, and no, the government doesn't care. !Profits! 4. Yellow Taxi cabs. (actually in the big cities these seem to have changed their driving habits somewhat for the better than in years past- probably the government figured out that they can fine the central agencies for the bad drivers mistakes. YAY!) 5. Ambulances. 6. White and Black BMW's (I forgot the big new 1200cc+ bikes- this is their place) or cars that are generally driven by sociopathic mafia related business men. They have the MEETING to get to or else they LOSE MONEY. Heaven forbid slowing down for children or old women or ducks. These often vary, sometimes the college kid free car bought by dad, thats pimped up with mags and neon fits here. Their reason is just pure selfish stupidity and desire to show dumb hookers that they have a rich daddy. Basically I am including the type A ultra ambitious psycopaths inside their steel cages here. note the cigarette dangling out the rolled down window. 7. Normal/ old looking cars, overfilled with 12 people in a 5 person car. If I was in a box that hot, I would drive like a maniac too! 8. Scooters with old guys dangling cigarettes/ chewing bin lan and drooling red juice down their stained shirts stinking up the intersection and spitting red puddles everywhere.-- Also, the gas cylinder scooters bringing their deliveries. Dont get in their way. They all want to die. They are ronin, mafia between enforcement jobs, or old guys who used up their farm purchase allowance at the casinos, and now wander aimlessly waiting for a blue truck to kill them while wearing a cheap hello kitty hard hat. That is the sign of suicidal. Also, crazed college/high school boys who want to die after getting a 'horrible' 97% and getting daddy angry and not qualifying for the NTU doctor program. These guys are the suicide scooter guys. Around this time the young ones will start appearing more as the school year winds down. They drive at top speed and weave in between all the BMW's. This pisses those guys off and everyone starts getting chunky and cut-offy around that. You can avoid this by slowing down and letting the crazy guys go first. 9. Normal cars, with normal amounts of people who usually look happier than all of the above categories. These guys usually signal and may even wave. They have lattes and air-con. We envy them, but they get nowhere quickly due to the traffic jams. If they are very lucky they have the TV monitors inside their car to watch movies as they drift along at a walking pace up the main roads. They average a 1 hour drive for what takes a scooter 10 minutes. These are the polite normal guys. Occasionally they snap, though. Keep watching their tires. 10. Normal clean looking people on scooters who are just like you and trying to get to point B time efficiently without dying. 10. Electric wheelchairs/ golf carts/older electric scooters with inefficient speed ratios. 11. Bicycles. 12. (if you are in the country) Oxes, horses, carts. Tractors. 13. Walking people who can run. 14. Roadkill or people who are injured but can still hobble/run. 15. Baby ducks. Rats. Chained up dogs. otherwise known as practice targets.(just kidding) 16. Old people/pregnant women/ small children. Often seen waiting soulfully at the side for up to 1 hour before anything will stop. If you try to stop, everyone else will either go around you or over you. However, in defence of Taiwan, amazingly things have improved a bit (at least in Taichung where for some reason the police actually started doing their jobs a couple years ago- more or less- Yay Jason Hu!) Now 85-95% of people actually stop at red lights. It used to only be about 50% when I first came. If you can believe it, peoples driving habits here are much better than in Cambodia or Thailand. Basically people here have already killed off the unobservant or dumb pedestrians/ dogs. Darwinism has already scythed this country. It still is processing over there (and from rumors- in mainland China it is worse traffic than here... but I have not observed it there yet so I cannot say for sure.) Others Take the MRT :-) I've been to Taipei several times and I know what you are talking about. Let me say that you're right about the traffic problems, but I think Taiwanese are much less agressive drivers than some countries in South America. I guess every place has a disadvantage and the traffic in Taiwan is one of them. Just be careful and enjoy this beautiful place. I am TOTALLY with you. Driving in Taiwan is crazy. What kind of mentality do they have? Taiwanese don't care about traffic flow they just turn left/right whenever they want and cutting in line anytime DANGEROUSLY. And if I honk or shout at him/her they don't get it. And even worse they even watching me with this kind of eyes--> "What is wrong? there was no accident YET. It was close but didn't hurt you. so what?" It is hilarious. I am a Korean.I found interesting fact of between Korean and Taiwanese different mentality for driving(also different in so many ways). I am a Korean. I didn't have pleasant driving time in Korea BUT Korean driving cars or whatever carefully, defensive but fast and selfish. Taiwanese driving cars or whatever dangerous, unconsidered and scary(because they don't know of this word"defensive" for yourself and also for the other ppl). And if that accident didn't occur YET but it was very close then they just pretend(or they really think it is notthing) notthing happened and walk away. And I never heard "I am sorry" from them at all. Driving in Taiwan makes my days tired with all those worries and unexpected "adventurous" drivers in Taiwan. I totally know what you talking about. Skydog, what you say is true, the streets of Taiwan are a vehicular traffic jungle. Here, I won't say anything more as you have pretty much covered everything about the streetscape of Taiwan. But I would just like to add that the emissions from the large number of automobiles (including scooters) are in fact the top contributors of air pollution in the island. Taiwan has one of the highest densities of motor vehicles in the world, and we have, time and again, been dubbed "The Scooter Nation of the World." Now, I'd be lying if I say that I'm one of the street-saints out there. I, too, had my share of traffic violations and discourtesy towards fellow motorists (sometimes you lose yourself in the speed of things.) But, I have always been courteous towards pedestrians, especially old people and those with children. It is really a coincidence for me that you should be bringing this subject up, because not more than three weeks ago, I had a scooter accident with a black Polar Bear. I came out of that accident with several bruises on my hands, plus a sore leg which lasted for three days. Because of that accident, I am now a reformed motorist who avoid the Leonardo and Kate Syndrome, whereby a person feels a certain elation as the winds of speed sweep past through the face and the hair. Well, at least in my case not the hair because I always wear a helmet. Anyway, I am more careful now and less rude to fellow motorists. I've learned my lesson and currently avoid racing with others. If ever a crazy scooter BONGS you in the streets of Taipei, be sure the culprit isn't me. It's probably Matt of Asia (just kidding LOL.) Well I agree.. But if you think taiwan traffic is bad, than try mainland china. Especially GuangZhou or ShenZhen... mannn you will be speechless... This is why I hate to go China for business trip. It is so depressing, the people, the pollution and traffic... I've never personally driven in Taiwan because I've always taken the taxi. Maybe you should try that too. It's not very stressful and it's also pretty cheap. Also, I would like to mention that traffic is only bad in the big cities in Taiwan. It's like how driving in LA is a lot worse than driving in San Diego. Personal Experience |
| Tags |
| Malaysia Maldives Nepal Philippines Singapore Taiwan Thailand Vietnam General - Asia Pacific Buenos Aires General - Argentina |
Travel Info Categories--Copyright/IP Policy--Contact Webmaster |