taiwan tiger 台灣的老虎

Guide to Safe Scootering in Southern Taiwan

In another round of sad news, the South Taiwan foreigner community looks as though it will lose another member to a motorcycle accident.  Just last month in Tainan, and this last week in Kaohsiung, two young Canadians were involved in deadly accidents.  In the light of this, TaiwanTiger presents a list of things he has been thinking about for a while.  If anything is missing, please let me know. 

Taiwan Tiger's Guide to Safe Scootering in Southern Taiwan

Note: this doesn't cover any standard rules of the road, but rather focuses on making the trip as safe as possible, especially in Koahsiung.  I am hoping in the future to include some particularly nasty intersections/roads in the area, but for now, I'll stick with this.

BASIC STUFF:
Any accident is made a serious accident if you don’t wear a helmet.  Always wear one, and make sure it is properly fastened.  Don’t buy those little clam shell helmets you see all the hip guys and girls wearing in pink and black.  As one foreigner here found out, they slide over in the event of an accident, letting your head scrape the ground.  He was in the hospital for a good long time. 

Slow down.  It’s fun to drive fast, yes it is.  But slow down anyway.  You never know what is about to pop out in the scooter lane.  Certainly, life in Kaohsiung leads people to drive their scooters home drunk at night.  Please don’t do it.  If you do, please slow down.  That will at least give you a chance to avoid the worst of the possible accidents.

Don’t use your cell phone while driving.  Pull over.  You will, I know.  But the guy next to you won’t.  So watch out for people using cell phones, too.

RULES OF THE ROAD: KNOW THY ENEMIES
Most accidents are caused by people running the light late in one direction while others jump the light in the opposite direction.  Yes, hordes of scooter drivers will shoot across the intersection as soon as the light in the opposing direction turns yellow.  Don’t do it.  Wait for the green.  Even if you get honked at, which you will.  Wait for the green.  If you find yourself unavoidably in the middle of the intersection when the light turns, give a few beeps of your horn as a warning as you proceed through.

Kaohsiung drivers are notoriously law-ignoring.  In a normal day’s scootering around the city, I witness maybe 100 illegal running of lights or going the wrong way or such things.  There are actually one-way streets in this city where more people are driving against traffic than in the legal direction.  You will see everything.  Both cars and scooters run through lights like they aren’t there.  Watch out. 

BEWARE THE BLUE TRUCKS.  These little monsters are often driven ridiculously fast or out of control, and no doubt a good percentage of drivers are hopped up on bing lan.  The two accidents I saw that took out the driver in front of me (there but for the grace of God go I…) were both the result of idiotic driving by deadly BLUE TRUCKS.

RIGHT-OF-WAY
Sometimes I feel like driving in south Taiwan is like negotiation.  No one really has any right-of-way.  But I think, really, driving in Kaohsiung is like skiing—the downhill person has the right-of-way.  That is, the person in front of you has the right-of-way.  It doesn’t matter if they pull out right in front of you without looking.   Which people do, every single day.  Let me say it again:  You have no right-of-way in front of you.  Drive accordingly.  If a car is overtaking you, for instance, and comes back in too early, it is probably more your fault that you didn’t hit the brakes to let them in than it is their fault for hitting you.

Here's the negotiations: when facing an oncoming vehicle making a left turn across your path, you have two options.  Option A—swerve a little to the right to make it clear that you are going in front of the car before they turn.  This is a little more dangerous than option B.  Option B—slow down and move slightly to your left, encouraging the driver to make a turn in front of you.  Much safer, as you control the situation more.  The same goes for a car going in the same direction then making a right turn through the scooter lane.  You will either have to slip around on the right, making sure they understand what you are doing, or slow down and move left, giving them a chance to turn.

CONDITIONS:
Especially on roads with heavy industrial traffic, watch out for oil on the road.  My only spill was on a 45 degree turn where oil had been dripped out in the road.  I hit the pavement, as did the scooter after me, and the scooter after him.  Ouch.  Also, asphalt laying skills here are in a sorry state.  After any sizeable rain, huge potholes will appear.  Crews will come by and smush some more asphalt in the hole, which will stay there until the next big rain, when it will all wash away, exposing that pothole again.  I have seen the same one over and over again after every rain.  Be careful after the rain.  Some are quite deep.  I saw a woman go ass over teakettle after hitting an eight inch deep crater in the middle of Jian Guo Road, one of the major thoroughfares.   

POLICE:
I have heard bad stories about how the police treat foreigners in “Taiwan”—I assume that most of that information is geared toward Taipei.  Generally, police are very considerate here in Kaohsiung.  Due to their insufficient language skills, they will often just wave you on if you get pulled over, but I have had some nice conversations in Chinese with them, too.  The quickest way to get pulled over currently is not having 2 mirrors on your scooter, which is their current enforcement target.  You should have and use both mirrors.

I'm sure I am forgetting some important things, but remind me and I will update it.

Hooooo, Sheeeee

On Friday I was on my way to school when I happened into my first traffic accident. I was driving my scooter along at a relatively leisurely pace, as it was before 10 a.m. and I was not fully awake. A car behind me began to overtake me. A blue BMW with sport exhaust package--generally known as a young gangster's car. They are often tooling about in the neighborhood near the university. As he passed me, I noted with some shock that he was within about 6 inches of me, literally. This is generally a few inches closer than normal here, so I was a bit annoyed. Then, instead of waiting unti he had fully passed me before pulling back over to the right, he started while he was halfway through the pass, clipping the front of my scooter. Fortunately, I didn't lose control of the bike or anything, so I just kept scootering on, looking for signs to pull over should the driver think it was necessary. Which, of course, he did. So he slowed down, and I slowed down, nervously wondering if the occupant in this case actually was a gangster. It is a fairly common story to hear of these guys ramming the back of your car, then claiming (with fabricated witnesses) that it was all your fault, then demanding money for the damages. Wary of this scheme, I waited until a relatively public intersection to pull over. The guy rolls down his window and mustered up the meanest looking face he could. He just stared. I was a little scared, but mostly amused at his badboy look. I'm sure my foreigner status might have bought me off here. So he glowered at me, and I gave a deadpan look back at him as if to say, "listen, you fricken' idiot, you're the one who nearly killed me." I also managed to stifle my overpowering urge to flick him the bird, which I was rather pleased about. I uttered a simple "hao bu hao?" (It's ok?). He got out of his car, forgetting to put on the hand brake, and check the side of his vehicle, which already had several sizeable dents in it. Being ever the kind samaritan that I am, I did manage to alert him to the fact that his car was rolling, albeit slowly, towards some unknown end on the quay, perhaps perched on one of the fishing boats that line the road. Or perhaps in the drink itself. He waved me off with an its OK sign and I got out of there. Of course, I am waiting and watching my rear view mirror for the blue BMW. I think I will start to take a different route to school, just to be on the safe side. It's a nicer drive anyway.

Recently I had the opportunity to sample what is a morning ritual throughout Taiwan, but which also points out some the many times when seemingly incongruous things inhabit the same place at the same time. Like the girlie show at the wedding banquet. While the dawn spreads its rosy fingers upon Taiwan, thousands gather in cultural centers and parks to partipate in tai chi or weird unidentifiable stretching exercises. We were up on a memorial park that overlooks Kaohsiung, getting some late night grub from one of the food stalls that sells BBQ items and "things on a stick" that simmer endlessly in broth until some lucky soul liberates them. I liberated, apparently, some fish ball thing, jellied pig blood, and BBQ'ed chicken ass. Yes, it was. And yes, it was good, as was the pig blood thing. After that and a bowl of soup, we walked up the stairs to the upper portion of the memorial park. In one part, about 40 people hopped around to aerobics, led by an instructor, while a noticeably smaller crowd followed the tai chi instructor in morning meditative movements. Accompanying the tai chi master was a odd sounding soundtrack of plinking Chinese string instuments and a female voice that repeated (or almost sang, really) over and over the rallying cry of "hooooooo" followed a few seconds later by "sheeeeee." The former--hu1 呼--means exhale, the latter--xi1 吸--means inhale. The whole scene was rather relaxing and meditative for 5:45 a.m., so my little group paused from our walk and tai chi'ed for a while. At the same time as "hooooooo" "sheeeee" blared from the speaker stands, however, 30 feet away another set of speakers roared a man belting Taiwanese favorites from a portable KTV (karaoke) stand. I don't know if he showed up this early just to sing his heart, or whether he was avoiding going home from the previous night. The mishmash of sounds--aerobics group, hooo shee lady, and the Taiwanese crooner--was another reminder of the fact that it is almost never quiet here.

Tonight a friend took me to dinner at a place here called Au-Ma, featuring European cuisine. It's a pretty good deal, really, and the food is tasty. You choose a number of items from a set menu. I had a tiny shrimp appetizer, a modest Ceasar salad, delicious seafood and asparagus soup, a small beef filet, creme caramel dessert (no, sorry, it was actually "desert") and a cafe latte for NT$350--about US$10. The restaurant also has a tea service, with little nibblies. One setting is in the normal afternoon slot, and and other is from 9-midnight.

Speaking of menu misspellings, this one comes from my neighborhood coffee shop: "Rich Wiggle with Sal Man." I think it is some sort of salmon in pasta cream sauce, but the "wiggle" part throws me off.