Traffic (part 1)

I suppose now, at long last, I will write about scootering. The impetus is simple: this morning, I arrived at school approximately 3 minutes before the start of my first class. When I left my apartment, I was estimating I would arrive approximately 15 minutes early. Oh, the added joys of needing to stop for gas and meeting rush hour traffic at 7:30am.

I wish I had photos or a video to illustrate. However, when you're caught in the middle of a throng of several hundred scooters all trying to squeeze into a sudden half-lane where seconds ago there were three full lanes (I'm looking at you, intersection of Zhong Shan and Kaisyuan), you're not really thinking about whipping out your camera.

It's been a few months now since I started scootering here in Taiwan, and I feel that I've established a sort of equilibrium with the vehicle and the traffic: I no longer have to think about what I'm doing in order to get where I need to go, and I now know what I can and cannot do in traffic. Here's a hint: these lists rarely coincide with the local laws.

And that is because, in truth, there is only one law in Taiwanese scootering: watch the people in front of you and make sure you don't run into anyone/thing. (I used to say the one law was don't kill anyone, but the two kind of merge together when you think about it.) I've mentioned this to a lot of people already at this point, but scootering here became a lot easier for me once I realized that it follows the exact same rules as downhill skiing: whoever is behind has full responsibility to watch out for whoever is in front. Of course, just to be safe, though, it's always best to steer a straight course and avoid sudden moves.

Which would be a lot simpler if it weren't for the way the roads here are constructed. Most of the major roads have designated scooter lanes set off from the main road by a concrete median (the smaller roads have something more akin to a bike lane/extra wide shoulder, and scooters are allowed into the outermost lanes in any case). However, the scooter lanes serve a dual purpose as the sole access point to any and all businesses along the street, streetside parking, and many alleyways, which means that cars are continuously pulling into and out of the flow of scooter traffic, going approximately a third of the average speed and apt to behave irregularly, doing things like stopping suddenly to back into a spot, or turn without signaling just as scooters are trying to go around their hulking slowness. And then there's the ever-present concern that parked cars might open a door at just the wrong moment.

And that's not even to mention intersections, where cars turning across (or with) traffic are a frequent occurrence, leading to a regular game of chicken, as they may or may not remember that there is a scooter lane, and that, size notwithstanding, scooter drivers also have a right to be on the road.

Which brings me to another basic tenant of Taiwanese driving: here, green lights mean nothing and red lights mean less. Here's a hint: there's some causality in that statement. No matter the light color, the solitary rule of driving applies: look in front of you (and to each side) before proceeding. Chances are, there's another vehicle barreling through that red light of 15 seconds, or maybe the coast is clear and you're fine to go on, no matter that the light is red. These are the rules of the road.

And oh, what a road it is, full of manholes and sewer covers which would be nothing to a car but which are, to scooters, jolting affairs which intimately acquaint knees with handlebars. I understand the reasons for consistently putting these obstructions in the scooter lane (closer to the side of the road, easier to access, easier to divert traffic in the event of work), but still, it's hard not to wonder why as I catapult over another metal lid and look over to the smooth, smooth pavement of the car lanes.

That's it for now--this is something of an endless font of content, so I'm sure I'll be returning to it soon, maybe to comment on helmet usage, or the classic question, "how many people can fit on a scooter?" Drivers here seem never to find a conclusive answer on that one...