Driving in Taiwan

While talking to a friend of mine a few days ago while we were surfing around on YouTube we found our selves on the topic of driving in Taiwan. My friend with a straight and honest face told me directly that “People in Taiwan are excellent drivers.” and that he doesn’t know where the idea came from that Taiwanese are horrible drivers. This led us to a very entertaining search around YT for the videos of drivers in Taiwan. One of the videos had a link to a post that had the following to say about driving in Taiwan. Something that I personally find to be a nearly perfect representation of the driving mentality in Taiwan. The only thing missing is the little blue trucks.

“Though the basic rules of the road are the same as in most other countries, Taiwan has a widely practiced, alternative highway code. This alternative code is built around getting to your destination as quickly as possible with little or no regard to the safety of yourself and others. Some of the main points:

1. Driving on the Right
In Taiwan people drive on the right, but under certain special circumstances, especially if riding a motorbike or scooters, driving on the left is accepted,
i) You’re only traveling a short distance.
ii) Your destination is on the left and it’s inconvenient to drive on the right.
iii) You’re on the left, the traffic is busy, and it’s just too difficult to get across the road onto the right hand side.
iv) You’re having a good day and simply don’t feel that anything bad is going to happen to you.
These rules particularly apply to the elderly.

2. Red Lights
i) You don’t always need to stop for them. If you think you can get through ok, then go for it.
ii) If you do stop, then don’t stop completely. Keep edging forward. You’ll shave valuable milliseconds off your destination time and you make sure that guy next to you cant get in front and cut you off. In the competition to be first off the blocks, think nothing of edging out so far that you start to obstruct legally moving cars.
iii) Don’t wait for your light to change to green before putting your foot down. Keep an eye on the other light, wait for that one to change from green to red or even to orange, then go. You’ve got places to get to and waiting for a green light will add 7 or even 8 seconds on to your journey time. It’s not worth it.

3. Turning Right
When turning right, even onto a busy road, it’s not necessary to wait for a gap in the traffic. In fact, you don’t even need to look and check if there any cars coming your way. Feel free to put people’s lives in danger.
Even if there’s a red light, ignore it. Red lights only apply to people turning left or going straight on.

4. Overtaking
i) Overtake on both the inside and outside.
ii) Overtake on blind corners.
iii) Do it like ‘Michael’ Schumacher.

5. The Fast and The Furious
Great movie, right? You can do it too!

6. Speed Limits
These are more of a guideline than an actual rule. They’re meant for new drivers, women, and not for the likes of you. You’re a good driver, people have told you so, and you’re driving an SUV that has an engine big enough to power an airplane. You go as fast as you like.

7. Big Cars
Buy one. Not only will spend a lot of money running them, waste the Earth’s dwindling resources in a bid to make yourself look cool, add to the Nation’s chronically bad air pollution problem, but you can also intimidate people in smaller cars. Why bother with the hassle of overtaking? Instead just drive right up to puny car’s bumper, they’ll move for you. If they don’t, drive even closer, possibly honk your horn, you’ll get ’em.

8. Parking
Double parking, blocking someone else in, parking on a corner, these things might be considered lazy, selfish, and inconsiderate. But hey, what do you care?

9. Motorbikes and Scooters
i) Never look in your mirrors.
ii) Weave in and out through cars and slower bikes, cut them off if you want.
iii) Scooters can be specially adapted with a small wicker chair on the foot plate. What better or safer way to transport a baby?
iv) Child passengers don’t need a helmet. Hasn’t a scientific report shown that in the event of a 40 km/h bike crash, a child’s head will simply bounce off the tarmac?
v) A 125cc scooters can easily seat a family of four.
vi) Carrying very large, and very long objects on a bike is totally safe.

Taiwan’s roads are extremely dangerous and to survive them you need to do more than just prepare for the worst. Expect to be amazed by some new act of lunacy every time you get on your bike or in your car. Even then, even if you’re a careful driver, and many are, there’s no guarantee of safety when the roads are filled with so many complete idiots.

There are numerous causes for this terrible state of affairs: the teaching and testing systems are laughably inadequate; police routinely turn a blind eye to indiscretions; drink-driving is not socially unacceptable; even the laws governing liability for a crash are hazy. I am told that things are changing in this last regard, but in many cases compensation must be paid to whichever party was most seriously injured, even if the accident was their fault.

The number, and scope of these causes ensure that, even if the government took immediate and drastic action, Taiwanese roads will remain dangerous for many years to come. Perhaps the most worrying thing is that very little action, drastic or otherwise, is forthcoming.” --Written by Andrew Crosthwaite

~~Drama~~

Recently I have been having trouble with a coworker of mine. He has only been working with me for nearly 1 year and half now, this guy is a real pain in the ass to me on a regular basis. He isn't a bad teacher but he really doesn't know his place in this world.In the way of rank in the company I am his senior by 2 1/2 years and on top of that I have been in training to become the co-head NST teacher.

Just a little info on what NST stands for “Native Speaking Teacher”, which is the foreigner who teaches English to the students.The Head-NST is usually the most senior NST but in the case of my school’s she is not only the most senior with 9 years working for the school, but she is also the only one with a masters in early childhood education and English as a Second Language, After her there is another teacher who has been working here for 6 years now, but he has no aspirations to advance his rank in the school, he enjoys coming to work spending time with the kids and then going him and being with his lovely wife and daughter. Third in the list is me with 4 years with the school, there use to be people in front of me but the 3 of them moved on to new schools or went back to their home countries.

Back to the story.
This particular teach has been harassing me from nearly the start of the year, and for what reason I have no idea. Normally I am not interested in the going-on’s of those around me, so its not like I have interfered with his personal life and he is seeking retribution for something I did. Since it is completely unprovoked attacks on me I am not really holding back on him and the things I say to him.

For instance a few weeks back he and I had an argument over how I run one of my advanced classes. Which lead him to walk into the middle of my class uninvited and walk to the back of room and just sit there. This was not only a distraction for me but it was a distraction and unwanted stress for the students as well. He didn’t introduce himself, he didn’t explain why he was there, just sat there starring. So, after 20mins of his causing an uncomfortable wave completely washing over the class making even the best students to hesitate to answer the simplest of things, I walked slowly to the back of the room still reading from the passage grabbed him by the arm, and told one of the girls in the front of the class to read from where I stopped and dragged him out of the classroom. Once I shut the door I kept my voice down and yelled at him for disrupting my class. I told him something along the lines of “If you ever disrupt my class like that again I will make sure it is the last time you do”.

This wasn’t even the first time that we had a problem like this. The first that I can remember was when we had an open house for the parents to see what would our advanced classes will be like. I think what set him off was when I told the parents that the advanced class is there to help the students whose English is at a level high enough to be taking Jr. High or Sr. High School level classes but because of their age are stuck in Elementary or Jr High. As such these classes there to help the students to progress their skills without being held back by being taught at a lower level. Every student admitted in the class has passed and entrance exam that they needed to score at least 80% on to be allowed in, and if at any time during the class I feel that they are not progressing because they are not able to keep up, or didn’t understand the material even after additional assistance I would return them to their normal English classes. Even though they are being placed back in the mainstream class it is in no way a punishment, it is to prevent the students from having to struggle in the class and to keep them moving onward and upward. I think the part that pissed him off was when I told the parents that “I” would be the one to take them out of the class if I thought it was best for them. However I am not sure on that.

Anyway the most recent fight that I have had with this guy has pissed me off so much that I am seriously thinking about trying to get him fired. One of my new responsibilities is helping to review each of the teachers performance reviews and archiving them into the computer. Several days before the most recent incident with him I had made it to his performance review and saw that he is actually ranked with the lowest of the teachers. His classes have the lowest overall test scores and his approval rating with the other teachers is low as well. So I don’t know if he is taking his frustrations out on me or if he just doesn’t like me?

Living for 2 years in Taiwan is a hard thing for a westerner. It takes a lot of resilience and inner strength to make it. I found that once I made it to the 2 year mark I was ready to fight my way out of Taiwan if I had to, but I pushed on and said if this year sucks as bad as is starting to I will leave. 2 years later I am still here and still giving it my all. Still have a quick flight suite case though. Fighting on every single day.

~Chububocat~