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Montag, März 29, 2010

Dangerous crossings in Taiwan

Prepared for morning traffic? Yes my leader! Engage scooter engines now!

While half the island of Taiwan is enraged about a foreigner crashing with a local motorcycle (http://bobhonest.blogspot.com/2010/03/foreigners-and-accidents-deadly-example.html) nobody cares what is really dangerous in traffic. Like when you follow the truck in the pic in one of my previous posts (http://bobhonest.blogspot.com/2010/03/suvs-buring-hole-into-ozone-layer.html) you will come to a big plus-shaped crossing with traffic lights. But big trucks come from some kind of sand factory ground and enter the crossing in a sharp angle without any traffic lights. Of course the heavy sand trucks assume to have priority and speed with high velocity into the crossing waiting for everybody else to let them pass, simply because they are bigger. I once had to break hard for a betlenut chewing nutcase and his truck and only recently I saw a smashed Honda SUV at the very same crossing, the truck standing close by.
No rocket science this will happen again and again. Or the crossing in Taipei in front of my workplace. A three-lane crossing with traffic lights, shaped like the star in a Mercedes-Benz emblem. The fun about it is: the two lower lanes (at 4 and 8 o'clock in the star) have green at the very same time! This always leads to collisions of scooters who assume to have green exclusively and speed into the crossing. WHAM! Cries of pain, injured people crawling on the road's surface and laughing pedestrians. Sense of humor Taiwan style. Taiwan, touch your heart. One last time.

Sigh, another Monday morning, I am still here and all I do is nag about things which will never change :-)

5 Kommentare:

Anonym hat gesagt…

I just wonder whether cars and scooters here have no signal lights, or the driver doesn't know how to use it or what?

Guten tag!

Anonym hat gesagt…

You can call Richard of Barking Deer and change your life here for the better.

"Ludigel" hat gesagt…

What, deers are barking? Mon dieu...

Unknown hat gesagt…

Ah, yeah, Richard is a nice guy.

I heard gravel truck drivers are the worst: If they accidently hit you, they will turn and hit you another time to make sure you are dead - compensation for dead victims is less than for heavily injured.

"Ludigel" hat gesagt…

yes has really happened several times. But it is dangerous for the drivers to do that recently as there are so many cameras everywhere now. One was caught recently, was reported on the forums forumosa.com somewhere.