What I noticed about the scooters while I was there was that they are the slowest ones on the road, but they always are willing to get in front of you. The flies analogy earlier is very fitting. At a red light, cars pull up first, and scooters come in swarms from behind, on all sides of the cars, in order to sit at the front of the intersection. When the light turns green, the cars punch it and drive past the scooters.

I'm not sure if your buddy follows the same practice, but it doesn't surprise me that a guy on a scooter would get hit with they way they drive. The only scooters I saw that didn't do that were driven by young mothers with small children clinging to them like koalas.

 

When I visited China back in my college days, I saw people crossing the freeway... The cars were obviously traveling fast, but people didn't really care.

 

I was born and raised there. Many of my friends who i grew up with have moved back there, so I visit them many times a year.

This is the thing, they are not murderers, of course everyone will try to brake.
But it is not the same as US, if there is a gap or space that the car can get through while you are crossing, they will.

I actually just came back from Chungli 3 weeks ago.

Taipei is actually a lot better, small places like Chungli is worse.

 

Have you seen how scooters make left turn?

I was riding scooters in TW... you just have to forget about all the US rules and remember one rule, don't get hit!

 

haha

I had no problem crossing streets in China when i was small, even by myself.

When i was visiting China 2 years ago, i was standing at the intersection with right of way but did not have to balls to cross. Had to find a freaking bridge.
Others cross like the cars don't exist and the cars go by like the people don't exist. Somehow it works.

 

Interesting, what is the most lanes you've seen on a highway? With that amount of people I can imagine 10 lane highways hahahaha.

 

in TW the most i have seen is 4 lanes each direction? but there is a camera in every 1/2 mile.

 

Figures. Does it have a police state feel?

 

Other than camera, i think you probably can get away with anything. But the GPS will tell you where the cameras are and even warn you before. So you really have to want to get a ticket to get one.

There is no such thing called illegal U turn

Most of the police are on scooters and the ones in cars always have their blue/red lights flashing on top, so you could spot them from a mile away.