Dave Hodgkinson Music Photography, London

Wacky Races Taipei Style

There’s a weird ecosystem on the streets in Taipei, one I suspect that’s mirrored all over Asia. The rules seem to be:

• The cars, and especially the taxis, take it pretty easy because they have to keep their eyes open for scooters
• The scooters take it fairly easy because they have to keep their eyes open for pedestrians…
• …who have a tendency to wander into the road as the pavements are choked up with parked scooters, cylces and food carts.
• And it’s all complicated by a “right on red” convention that has cars and scooters nudging in to streams of pedestrians crossing the road.

That said, in two months I’ve only seen one accident: one scooter touching the rear wheel of another send both tumbling. Both riders were shaken but largely unhurt. Didn’t stop the cars trying to weave through the debris, mind.

Oh, and you’ll have to imagine the stench of the partially burned fuel from the swarm in the video below:

Related Posts:

• Street photography competition
• Sleeping on the job
• Retro
• Taiwanese food
• Taiwanese food

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 at 10:05 am. It is filed under Travel and tagged with night, scooters, taipei, taiwan, wacky races. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.