Chinese Driving

Taiwanese drivers could never be noted for their skill. It’s erratic and dangerous, but this could not prepare me for the driving here.

If the Taiwanese drive cars as if they were driving scooters, the Chinese seem to regard safety and regulation in the same was a Cambridge University cyclist would. It’s chaos. Cars reverse back to missed exits on the motor way, silent and deadly electric scooters scythe through lines of pedestrians and taxis behave as if the drivers really badly need the toilet.

My guess is the horn is also connected to the break pedal, and is always used to greet oncoming traffic with a friendly hoot as buses and taxis career down the middle of the highway straight at each other. I have even been witness to freely flowing traffic break into cheerful symphony as soon as one car makes as much as a hoot.

And in the middle of all of this are the thousands of bicycles, somehow oblivious to the war between the motorised members of the club. Why there are no dismembered limbs and bleeding wounded by the side of the road I do not understand.

I never thought I would say this but I feel safer on the roads in Taiwan.

The taxi drivers are separated from their irate passengers by plexiglass