Some more questions:

- In my city in Taiwan, I notice that police cars drive around with their overhead red and blue lights flashing all the time. So how would you know if a cop wanted to pull you over? Would they turn on the siren or high beam you or what?

- I notice that Taiwanese drivers frequently run red lights and make illegal U-Turns. It seems the cops are lax about that kind of thing. Is that true? Does that mean I should start doing the same?


_________________
Happier Abroad Grand Ebook
Meet Foreign Women

"It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards." - Harry Browne, How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

Winston wrote:

Some more questions:
- In my city in Taiwan, I notice that police cars drive around with their overhead red and blue lights flashing all the time. So how would you know if a cop wanted to pull you over? Would they turn on the siren or high beam you or what?
- I notice that Taiwanese drivers frequently run red lights and make illegal U-Turns. It seems the cops are lax about that kind of thing. Is that true? Does that mean I should start doing the same?

This depends on where you are. In Taipei the cops are more numerous & less tolerant. In Taichung, my friend drove on the wrong side the road to get to a boboa place, because he was too lazy to make an illegal U-turn.


There's a joke going around that the Chinese Army trained their truck drivers like this, not for the battlefield, but to survive Chinese city traffic:


Link

Winston wrote:

Chinese people from China seem so friendly and warm.

I strongly disagree with you on that one. Of all the countries I've traveled to, people in China (at least northeast China) seemed by far the most cold, unfriendly, and aggressive. Unless someone is in their family or is their personal friend, Chinese people will treat strangers like garbage. And the more Mandarin you learn, the more you realize all the nasty things Chinese people are saying to you or others.

And as for Taiwan's traffic - I promise you it's much worse in mainland China. China also has the worst driving I've seen anywhere, and by a mile. I've been to many developing countries, and none of them even come close to how people drive in China. Traffic laws are pretty much never enforced. It's very much a "free for all" on China's roads and streets.

Momopi,
How am I supposed to deal with this driving situation in Taiwan?

Taiwanese cities aren't designed for cars to park in, only for scooters, and this includes small cities too, like Chiayi, not just big ones. But if you ride a scooter, you take a big risk because one accident could end your life or put you in critical condition. So in other words, driving in Taiwan puts you between a rock and hard place. It's also dangerous making turns in a car, because every time you do, you have to carefully check for scooters driving alongside you, which are everywhere like ants, lest you knock them over. What happens if you forget to look just once...? Sheesh.

Moreover, on some busy roads, when swarms of scooters are passing next to you, you can't see clearly to be 100 percent sure that it's safe to turn and go through them. That happened to me once, and the cars behind me honked and yelled at me. But what can I do? I can't just cut through a swarm of scooters, because I can't be completely sure that it would be safe with so many scooters to look out for that are so close by with such a slim margin of error! Yet if I don't, the cars behind me get pissed. Sheesh. How do I win? Again, I am between a rock and hard place.

How do other drivers in Taiwan deal with the above?


_________________
Happier Abroad Grand Ebook
Meet Foreign Women

"It takes far less effort to find and move to the society that has what you want than it does to try to reconstruct an existing society to match your standards." - Harry Browne, How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell