While dropping the ban on private registrations of large motorcycles, Taiwanese regulators are taking several steps that will tend to slow any shift toward big imported bikes. For starters, they are imposing strict tailpipe emission rules on motorcycles over 250cc.
Regulators are also drafting the world's most stringent standards for how hot the exteriors of motorcycle exhaust systems can become. With 10 million motorcycles in use here, nearly one for each adult, many commuters in shorts suffer burns on their legs from grazing other motorcyclists' tail-pipes and mufflers in dense traffic.
The government will also require special driver's licenses to operate bikes with engines over 250cc. Motorists must take 32 hours of instruction to earn the special licenses, and the government has so far only offered a single small class, using government-owned bikes. Private driving schools are lining up to offer the course once they too can legally register big motorcycles.
Yeh said all these policies were meant to protect the public interest, not to erect new, less obvious trade barriers. "Taiwan cannot afford to do anything to hinder the market," he said, because of a national commitment to abide by free-trade rules.
Some motorcycle shop owners doubt that there will be many buyers for big motorcycles, especially at first. They warn that the market even for small motorcycles has been weak because of a long recession that is only now starting to show signs of ending, and because of Taipei's new subway system, opened in stages over the last four years.
Lee Huang-fu, the manager of a motorcycle store across the street from where Chen was having his bike engine upgraded, sat next to a battered desk this week and looked sadly at his selling floor, where a few salesmen loitered with little to do. "The economy is bad," he said. "People cannot afford even the small bikes nowadays."
RSS