Taiwanese Road Roulette

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Welcome back, once again I hope to bring you something of interest from this far-flung (faux) pearl in the South China Sea.

This time, I will like to devote my essay to the traffic system. This would be a short essay if I was writing about the strict conditions in Germany or the easy going motor culture of the US. But as always Taiwan has a lot to talk about. For easy of planning, I will concentrate on: the roads and what is on then. I realize that might sound like a trivial amount of information, but Taiwan is not that simple.

The roads in Taiwan are built to last a lifetime. This would be great if it was not for the fact that the lifetime in question is that of the Mayfly. I am sure many a Mayfly though has harked back to the time when there was not a pothole or badly patched piece of tarmac on his local stretch of road.

Tarmac resurfacing must be the major industry in Taiwan. I have never seen so many pieces of machinery dedicated to the activity in such a small area before. There are the rollers, the surfacers, and the scratchers. These machines will resurface a section of road while you are still driving across it.

I am not too sure about the state of Taiwanese road construction. The Romans were World famous for their ability to make the finest roads. They built fine hard wearing roads with strong foundations. Taiwan, I feel, decided to concentrate on the surface. You cannot see the foundation, so why bother. And anyway, as time passes the old surfaces will end up as the foundation. Possibly in the future, archaeologists will dig up these old roads and be able to date their ages by counting the layers.

Why is there so much resurfacing going on? Well I am not sure on that one. Corruption could be a possibility as there seems to be a lot of slipshod work going on. Gang-run building contractors could be undercutting the competition, and then delivering below quality goods; bribing the inspectors as they go. I have seen plenty of examples of road surfaces being made of tarmac that should have been used in cooler climates. These surfaces under the tropical sun of Taiwan, have soften considerable, allowing passing trucks to rut and gouge up the stuff in heaps.

What other reasons could cause the road surfaces to need constant repair? The fact that the roads get dug up by other contractors set on laying new pipes, could be another reason. The local roads are pitted with the scars of the road works that trawl up and down them. The local government seems to have no forward planning when it comes to coordinating its road works. It does not seem that a moment has passed, and the resurfacing has been completed, when a second team of workers set to at digging a hole in it. Perhaps, they are drilling in hope of finding where the manhole cover is under the macadam.

Other roads seem to have missed the attention of the resurfacing machines. They are relics of a time when Taiwan used real tarmac, and have lasted the years well, so to speak. Their problem is that they usually suffer from poor verges and have drainage problems. Their once flat surfaces are undulated, as their foundations sink unevenly, and on occasion, mini sinkholes appear. These potholes, come deathtraps, are marked by passing motorists with any handy tree branch or bamboo stick that is nearby. They are reminiscent of lonely grave markers left by American settlers moving West. If someone is civic-minded, they might fill in a hole with a few stones to protect cyclists that might run into it. Then after a while, the council sends a truck and patches the hole. The workers usually throw in a few rocks and drop a patty of tarmac on top. With time the patty will sink into the hole, if they are lucky it will match up roughly with the level of the road. Usually though, it continues to sink as the drainage problem was never solved, and the cycle continues.

As a rule, the majority of the heavy road work gets done at night, but a lot of the work still goes on during the day. The nice part is they try not to let it get in the way of the traffic, or possibly the traffic does not let the work stop them. I have seen cars driving around the resurfacing machinery, over the fresh tarmac (possibly to help flatten the surface out.) Watching the marking teams is a laugh, too. They will work in and around the traffic. I was at a light controlled junction once, and when the light was red the crew skipped out, and set to with the chalk line, to mark out a pedestrian crossing. I imagined the white marking crew painting the strips around the wheels of any vehicle that was in the way.

Another important use of the crowded roads, is for funerals and weddings. It is a tradition in Taiwan, to hold a period of mourning at the house of the bereaved. It will last for about three days and for the main part be extended from the front room out on to the street. This allows people to come at any time to pay their last respects. (As an aside the bereaved closest family wear white hooded gowns and people passing by should avoid looking in on the proceedings.) At the end of the mourning period, a banquet is held and this will use up a lane of the street outside the bereaved's house. A large tent or marquee will be set up plus an area to do all the cooking. After last religious formalities there will be a big meal. Weddings are the same, but fewer people are unhappy and there will be a stage for some entertainment, a wailing Karaoke singer or maybe a stripper.

With all the obstructions on the roads, you would think the road users would be overly cautious. Far be it! They are some of the most badly behaved drivers I have witnessed to date. The only good thing I can say about their poor driving, is that since everyone is so bad, no one can get upset about it and spark up some road rage. As with most things in Taiwan, laws are for the majority of 'Other People' to follow, they are not meant for the individual. And if there is a law, it is seldom regularly enforced.

The average Taiwanese driver follows the idea, rather than the letter, of the motor code. They will be restrained and try not to break the law too many times. Sometimes the restraint breaks down in rush hours and crises, but on the main they will be patient. It is for them that I hold most pity, as they stick in long tailbacks and watch all the habitual lawbreakers whiz past.

The habitual lawbreakers can be classified under simple ideas: kamikaze motorcyclists, minivan maniacs, luxury cars lunatics, and taxi drivers. They all share some common features in driving, namely: blinkered visions, suicidal tendencies or invulnerability illusions, no common road sense, a disrespect of the law, and delusions of their own importance as the prime road user.

Road sense is often the most vacuous part of a bad drivers character. In many countries, learner drivers are educated in the importance of distance for such things as breaking and maneuvering. In Taiwan, drivers quickly learn to throw that part of the text book out of the window. The critical driving distance in Taiwan, is the car length, it is the ideal distance to keep between you and the car in front. Anything longer means an articulated truck might squeeze in and move you a place back in the giant snaking line of traffic. So, it is best to maintain you breath on the neck of the driver in front.

Also in maneuvering, giving another driver plenty of space, to move out of a difficult spot, is tantamount to giving up the will to be called a man and emasculating yourself, especially if you are a male driver. No! The better thing to do is to move in real close and start a car courtship ritual of backing and edging forward, a few peeps of the horn and light flashing and you nearly have a wildlife documentary.

The use of the car horn and indicator lights is a marked feature of the bad Taiwanese driver. Car horns are not to signal danger, but to signal right of way. In Taiwan, when someone approaches a blind junction, they hit the horn, this shows they have 'booked' the right to cross or enter the junction. This is very useful at light controlled intersections, where the light has just turned red, but the driver wants to say he is just a little bit late, and still eligible to cross. One writer, once remarked that he would count the number of times his driver used the horn to estimate the quality of the journey. He counted ten one day, and knew he was in for a bad ride, as the driver had not left the parking lot by that time.

Indicator lights are the props of the devil here. Their original purpose have been long forgotten by the bad drivers, and they are used either to say, "I am going to squeeze in here whether you like it or not," or "I have just cut in front of you and am planning a breaking turn, so break fast or become road kill." Of course they have the notorious use as flashing parking permits, when there is not anywhere convenient to park, in the next curbstone length, just hit those flashing lights and nip into the movie theater to catch the double bill, everyone will understand.

Of course these are the generic traits of all four breeds of Taiwan's traffic violators, along with using the hard shoulder as an extra lane in slow traffic, crossing red lights, pulling out into traffic without waiting for a suitable gap, using right only lanes to jump to the front of the lines at traffic lights (Just move slowly up the lane and hope the light changes when you get to the front, or hope nobody will be behind you to start a fuss with their horn,) and so on.

The four breeds have their own specialties of course:

Kamikaze motorcyclists utilize their ability to sneak into the smallest of gaps and swamp around cars, both stationary and moving at high speed. At every light junction, you can see them trickling between the cars, as they make their ways to the front. They fly off at the very hint of amber in the lights for the cross flowing traffic, or wait for gaps to dart across in.

The Kamikaze motorcyclist also quickly learns not to wait at junctions for gaps to pull out in. Their technique for entering the new direction of traffic, is to accelerate to a matching speed, and merely slot in or along side the new traffic stream. Not great fun if you are in that new stream and you see the motorcyclist powering toward you on a collision course.

The minivan maniacs revel in their nippiness and compact size. They are ideal tools of the delivery brigade. This breed of driver will find any space in which to nose. Time being the essence, any chance to jump a car space of two cannot be missed. Also you can drive against the traffic in this kind of vehicle, just put the main beams on and slowly hug the hard shoulder, or the motorcycle lane, make your way to your next delivery, all the other drivers will understand, and maybe see you in time as they come around the bend.

luxury cars lunatics suffer from a huge amount of egotism and a belief that the value of your car equates to your right of way. On the down side for them, they cannot duke it out with moving car wrecks, due to a chance of picking up a dent or scratch. These driver have an over fondness for double parking and travelling in convoys. These convoys stop at every junction to roundup the stragglers and confer on the location of the Karaoke place they are after; the location of which is only known by one driver at anytime, hence necessitating the convoy.

The last breed, is of course a breed apart, and they are the taxi drivers. But first I must say they are polite; they certainly find it difficult to turn their backs to you when they are talking at you (Even though you do not speak Chinese.) It is of course something you do not mind, as you are in the back seat and they are overtaking down a busy street. Taxi drivers seem to drift erratically between two states: asleep and frantic. When you question one, he, and usually he, will offer you an over the normally price; he will not want to use his meter. You will try to bargain and he will state you are starving his children. He will not consider that you are both standing at a street lined with parked taxis and that you will trawl the line for the best price (Possibly because he thinks you are too stupid to do that, or all the drivers are running a cartel.) Once you are in the car, he will drive to your destination, but clear up any chores he has on the way, such as iron the family's clothes back home.

Taxi drivers once driving are devils, they push around the motorcyclists who think there is not any space for their bikes, and they are the only people to scare the minivan drivers. They also engage in taxi wars, where two disgruntled drivers will phone up their mates, of the same taxi firm, on their mobile phones and then have it out on the street. They always look good on the news, though most of it is posturing and only a few headlights get broken.

All of the antics of the bad drivers filter down to the general public, who while wanting to be law abiding, find themselves being defensive. As a finish, I will tell you my favorite Taiwanese driving trick. I call it "The Traffic Light Conga." This is a phenomena of the light-controlled junction. As the opposing lines of traffic wait, the left turn line is desperate to be moving as soon as the light changes, they do not want to wait for the oncoming traffic lane to empty first, so as the light changes, the first car in the line will nip out and block the oncoming traffic and start to force its left turn. The car behind will see a chance of also making a early left turn, and stick bumper to bumper with the first. And as you can imagine, a whole little line of cars will set off on their left turn, completely blocking the oncoming traffic. If the first car is not fast enough a motorcyclists might get in his path and stop him from completely blocking the oncoming cars, oncoming cars will nip in front of him desperate not to be help up, and the traffic will start squeezing each other to death.

Update

Taiwan's traffic problems reached the national English newspapers recently. The Taipei City police decided to have a crackdown. Did they decide to enforce the helmet law? Stop drives double or even triple parking? Pull over cars that jump red lights? NO. They decided to crackdown on the heinous crime of jaywalking.

People found breaking this serious misdemeanor were subject to a verbal slapping and had to watch a public safety video. If I were going to get hard on these criminals, who have scant regard for social order, I would have subjected them to two hours KTV with a room full of tone-deaf Thai factory workers. That would make the felons think twice.

Links to other sites about driving in Taiwan

1. 'Alexander's Epistle on Driving in Taiwan' and his 'Rules for the Road'.

2. 'Mondo Taiwan!' on Traffic in Taiwan.