Chinese tourists visiting Pingtung County’s Kenting (墾丁) over China’s week-long National Day holiday brought business to the beachside resort town, but also rowdy conduct and dangerously erratic electric-bicycling, local residents said.
Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島) is famous for its white-sand beaches, view of the ocean and watersports, drawing local and foreign tourists alike.
Due to the holiday, the number of Chinese tourists in Hengchun in the past week has more than doubled compared with the Mid-Autumn Festival last month.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
Although the rush of Chinese tourists brought a windfall for hoteliers, street vendors and electric-bicycle rental agencies, many Hengchun residents said they resented the visitors, especially because they appear to have a poor understanding of traffic rules and lack riding skills.
“Those bikes are electrically powered death machines,” one resident said, adding that many locals are “hiding” at home to avoid being “accidented” by rampaging bicyclists.
Hengchun resident A-Wu (阿鵡) said he thinks many Chinese tourists are clumsy and oblivious, prone to riding at dangerously slow speeds, chatting distractedly when waiting for traffic signs and making sudden turns.
He said some riders apparently hit the road without knowing how to steer their bikes.
“It is a locust horde,” he said. “Where is the conscience of the shop owners who rent electric bikes to these guys? How can somebody ride like this and have the guts to be on the road?”
The complaints seem to have some basis.
The Pingtung County Police Bureau said that between Thursday last week and Sunday, a period in which the number of Chinese tourists peaked, Hengchun’s emergency medical services responded to 11 road accidents involving electric bikes, a vehicle used primarily by tourists.
Bureau officials said that the real number of road accidents is probably higher, because less-serious crashes often go unreported.
Locals also said that Chinese tourists routinely misbehave — changing in public, wading into the sea in their underwear, pilfering seashells, or attempting to enter areas forbidden to visitors in spite of fences and warning signs.
However, most said the tourists’ inability or unwillingness to follow traffic rules remained the greatest source of frustration.
Until laws are revised to better regulate Chinese tourists, there is not much the bureau can do about foreigners breaking minor ordinances, a Hengchun police officer said.
Since electric bicycles for rent do not have license plates, the bureau punishes riders who break rules by treating their bicycles as illegal road obstacles, with a maximum fine of NT$1,200, said the police officer, who declined to be named.
He said that the bureau will send officers to warn rental operators about their responsibility to inform tourists of Taiwan’s traffic laws.
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