I don't want this letter to seem like a non-stop character assault on the Taiwanese, so I will keep this semi-focused.
When I resided in Vancouver, Canada, I was witness to some very poor driving habits by new Asian-Canadians. I wasn't sure if it was their inexperience in dealing with some of the situations that presented themselves or was it something more? I had heard native Canadians complaining incessantly about these drivers and I wasn't sure if this wasn't just racism rearing its ugly head and had nothing to do with driving at all. I wanted to give the Asian drivers the benefit of the doubt.
However, living in Taiwan for 3 months now, I must say that the conditions on the roads here are so atrocious, that there has to be some sort of recognition of the problem. Perhaps I am the only neurotic person to have noticed.
People here have not yet discovered road rage in its ugliest North American "I will take a shotgun to your head" form. The road rage is emerging though, every time I take the road.
How can a culture exist when the primary avenues of transportation are a battlefield of ineptitude and ignorance? Drivers here will ride at ferocious speeds within a couple of millimeters of children playing and dogs drinking water on the street. Most of the scooters also carry mothers and their one or two unhelmeted children standing up and distracting them. You would think that this might slow them down, but not exactly.
Here in Taiwan exists the absurd practice of entering an intersection or street, not by looking both ways and perhaps yielding to oncoming traffic, but by actually speeding into the road to join the traffic blindly. If you happen to be on the road traveling along, get ready for a car to come at you from any direction, at any time.
After three months I have already witnessed numerous accidents, including poor animals lying dead on the side of the road and a scooter driver lying dead in the middle of the highway.
I just don't get it. Apart from pollution that takes your breath away on the roads and literally forces you to wear a mask to survive, what else is waiting around the corner?
I wonder as I see the drivers making blind turns and jutting towards me while talking on cellphones. No one really cares if a few animals and people die, as long as someone gets somewhere in the same fashion that has served them for years. It's all like a strange hallucination to me, the foreigner on the roads.
The government here should really take a look at many social issues, including emission controls to be put in place for older vehicles. Drivers should have to attend mandatory drivers training courses, and that includes everyone, from lawyer to peasant. New, more conservative road initiatives also have to be passed.
All countries, including my own have their own idiosyncrasies and social quirks. Am I really out of line for pointing this situation out? A guy I met recently told me that the driving in Shanghai where he resides is much, much worse by comparison. I almost fell off my chair.
R. Lynn
Toronto, Canada
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