Taiwan Business TOPICS - Getting Behind the Wheel in Taiwan

Getting Behind the Wheel in Taiwan
Topics Archive 2010 Vol.40- No.5

It’s a different experience from driving in North America or Europe, but if you can adapt, there are decent roads and some magnificent scenery to explore.

BY STEVEN CROOK
PHOTO BY BARKING DEER AVENTURES

Taiwan's public transportation is inexpensive, efficient and – if you read some Chinese – easy to use. Nevertheless, there are plenty of destinations and situations where having your own set of wheels makes all the difference between frustration and enjoyment.

Even those who have been in Taiwan just a short time will have noticed that the way cars are driven and motorcycles ridden here is not quite the same as in North America or Western Europe. If you can deal with local road behavior and accept slow-moving, dense traffic in urban areas, the ROC (the outlying islands as well as Taiwan proper) is an excellent country to explore in your own vehicle – and not only because magnificent scenery awaits those who leave the cities.

Highways are well maintained and there are plenty of bilingual signposts. Road rage does occasionally occur but is not a major threat. As a contributor to Forumosa (www.forumosa.com ), the English-language online discussion forum, once put it, out of 1,000 drivers in the United States, 800 will be considerate, 199 will drive selfishly, and one will be a maniac with a gun. In Taiwan, the percentage of selfish or reckless drivers is higher, but there are virtually no armed crazies. When faced with slow or indecisive road-users, most Taiwanese drivers are extremely tolerant.

Before worrying about paperwork and cost, ask yourself if you are psychologically suited to driving in Taiwan. Not everyone is. Two years ago, after about four years of driving to work five or six days a week, Tim Greenwood sold his car and went back to commuting by taxi.

“The normally courteous and well-mannered Taiwanese become very different creatures on the roads,” says Greenwood, a Tainan-based British businessman. “The concepts of giving way and patience take a back seat to a very competitive, and sometimes quite intolerant, streak as drivers hustle for first position and slow drivers are ruthlessly cut off. Add to this equation a huge number of scooter riders darting in and around the car – plus truck drivers – and you have an unnerving and potentially treacherous motoring scenario. Many taxi drivers have the Chinese character for 'endure' dangling from their rear-view mirrors, and endurance is an essential requirement for anyone thinking of braving rush-hour traffic in Taiwan.”

What Taiwanese drivers do and fail to do is a favorite barroom topic among Western expatriates. One professional's assessment of driving conditions on the island can be found on the website of Auto Checkers (Tel: (02) 2834-9416; www.actaiwan.com ), an expatriate-run motor-vehicle inspection and vehicle sourcing company in Taipei. “Common practices [include] running of amber and red lights, parking in no-parking zones, not indicating when turning or changing lanes, tailgating, cutting off other vehicles without warning, undertaking [passing slower vehicles on the right], speeding, illegal U-turns, turning over double yellow lines, failing to give way, using pedestrian areas as alternative routes or for parking, failing to obey one-way signs, failing to use appropriate lanes, failing to restrain children and adults within a vehicle, not giving way to pedestrians, and more,” states the website.

To the list of hazards, Auto Checkers' founder Jamie Alton adds drivers who are drunk and those who have altered their lights in a way that blinds or confuses other road users. He attributes such behavior to a lack of enforcement, and to a driving test that is “quite farcical” in that it “does not require a driver to cope in a busy traffic system. It doesn't demand any defensive driving techniques.”

Auto Checkers' website offers this advice: “Newcomers to Taiwan should...spend time becoming acquainted with [the traffic environment] before taking control of their own vehicle.”

Those getting behind a steering wheel should also know that, in situations where one road-user must give way to another, an oncoming car flashing his headlights at you intends to proceed first and is expecting you to wait – not, as in the United States and Britain, the opposite. When a car is about to overtake a motorcycle or bicycle, the former usually warns the latter with a short blip on the horn. This is a good idea; drivers should watch out constantly for other road-users making unsignaled turns.

In keeping with the principle of reciprocity, if you have an international driver's license and come from a country, Canadian province, or U.S. state that recognizes ROC drivers' licenses, you can legally drive cars of any size and motorcycles no larger than 50cc for the first 30 days of your stay. The English-language section of the Directorate-General of Highways' website (www.thb.gov.tw ) lists countries and territories that accept ROC licenses, though the page is hard to read.

Those staying longer may be able to get an international driving permit, valid until the first anniversary of their arrival, from a local Motor Vehicles Office. This does not involve taking a test. After that, drivers will have to get a local car or motorcycle license; this involves either “replacing” the document from their home country with one issued locally (whether you can do this again depends on reciprocity) or taking the driving test.

The written part of all driving tests can be done in English or Chinese. Further details can be found on the government's Information For Foreigners website (http://iff.immigration.gov.tw ).

If you want to ride a motorcycle larger than 50cc, you should get a motorcycle license. Foreigners holding any type of ROC license should note that it is valid only until the expiry date of the person's Alien Resident Certificate (ARC). If you extend your ARC you can renew your driver's license; the procedure is straightforward. However, if you let the license expire, you will have to retake the tests.

Drivers should make sure they have adequate insurance. Car-owners and motorcyclists are legally obliged to insure themselves against personal injuries they may cause to third parties. However, because many road-users lack coverage for damage done to others' vehicles, hit-and-runs are common even when nobody has been injured. “The lack of comprehensive insurance causes drivers to speed off quickly to avoid personal financial loss as often their insurance will not cover such events,” says Alton. There have also been instances, he points out, where drivers have stopped and accepted responsibility, but provided false contact information.

Some insurance policies provide third-party personal-injury coverage of less than NT$1 million. This is far from adequate, as the Shino Lin case showed. In June 2007, while driving under the influence of alcohol, Lin, a pop singer, hit and killed a nurse riding a motorcycle. She escaped jail time, but had to pay NT$8 million compensation to the nurse's family. Foreigners involved in serious traffic accidents are usually barred from leaving the country until a settlement has been reached with the victim or the next of kin.

If you come across what appears to be the aftermath of a traffic accident, you are advised against stopping and trying to help for two reasons: lawsuits and robberies. If you take an individual to the hospital or pull someone from the wreckage, you may later be held responsible for their death or injuries. Also, criminals have been known to stage fake-crash scenes on quiet country roads and beg passing drivers to stop. Good Samaritans have been robbed and had their vehicles stolen.

Should you need to call the emergency services but cannot make your yourself understood, try the 24-hour Information for Foreigners Hotline (tel: 0800-024-111).


Road types and road rules

Those who expect to cover long distances should get familiar with Taiwan’s road-numbering system. Odd-numbered roads run north-south, and even-numbered ones east-west. Confusingly, two quite separate north-south roads bear the number 1, and there also two roads with the number 3. One of each pair is a freeway. Freeway 1 is crowded and stressful; on Freeway 3, which is quite scenic, you can cruise comfortably at 100 kilometers per hour. Highway 1 is best avoided (it is full of trucks); Highway 3 is a winding country road on which you would be doing well to average 50 kilometers per hour.

Freeway toll stations are spaced 30 to 40 kilometers apart. At each you'll have to pay NT$40, either by cash, pre-paid voucher (books of vouchers can be bought at freeway rest areas or at designated lanes at toll stations), or ETC (“electronic toll collection”). When approaching a toll station, pay attention to the signs. Certain lanes are reserved for trucks and buses, one or two are for vehicles with ETC equipment, while some lanes accept vouchers only. Abuse of the ETC lane will lead to a fine.

The usual freeway speed limit is 110 kilometers per hour, but in a few places it is lower. Cameras mounted on bridges catch those driving too close to the vehicle in front. If you are travelling at 100 kilometers per hour, by law you should be at least 50 meters behind the car ahead. On roads other than freeways, speed limits are relatively low – 50 to 70 kilometers per hour – and police speed traps are common.

Christiana Chen, who is in charge of long-term rentals to expatriates at Chailease Auto Rental Service (www.chailease.com.tw ; Tel: 02-2828-0033; Fax 02-2826-2191), says that of the traffic-violation tickets her company receives, “Most are for speeding, because [foreign clients] aren't familiar with the speeding limits here.”

Expressways are almost as fast as freeways. Most run east-west and link with the two north-south freeways. If you spend time driving in the countryside you will notice numbers on posts beside the road. Numbers with blue or white backgrounds are route numbers; those on a green background are kilometer markers.

For people interested in buying a secondhand car, Auto Checkers offers both pre-purchase inspection and vehicle sourcing services.

Major hire companies include Car Plus (www.car-plus.com.tw ; Tel: 0800-222-568) and Chailease Auto Rental Service. The former has helpful, English-speaking staff at branches throughout Taiwan. The latter has a specialist section based in Taipei to serve expatriates and foreign visitors. Another rental business with several branches is IWS (www.iws.com.tw ; Tel: 02-2599-5033; Fax: 02-2599-5036).

Typical daily rental rates are NT$2,500 for a 1500cc Toyota Vios and NT$3,800 for a six-seat Mitsubishi Savrin. When renting a car, a credit card is usually the only acceptable means of payment. You will be required to sign a blank credit-card voucher to cover traffic-law violations or parking fees that might show up after you have returned the vehicle. You will, of course, have to show both your passport and your international driver's license.

According to Chailease's Chen, the delay between a car being caught on a speed camera and its owner receiving a ticket through the mail can be as much as three months. “We check the credit-card expiration date before renting a car to a customer so we can be sure of collecting any fines after the car is returned,” she says.

Even with the client's credit-card details and signature, it is sometimes impossible to collect the fine. “It's very rare, but we have had customers cancel their credit card [between renting the vehicle and the fine showing up],” Chen says. She hopes that in such circumstances the government would cancel the ticket rather than require the rental company to pay. “As for local clients, we have no problems collecting fines. If the credit card fails, we can transfer the fines to them, because we can show the rental contract to the authorities,” says Chen.

Given these complications, it is not surprising that many smaller vehicle-hire businesses ignore the visitor market altogether and rent only to drivers who hold ROC licenses. Their reluctance is understandable, but not good for the development of Taiwan's tourist industry.

As far as this writer can tell, it is getting more and more difficult for those who do not hold an ROC driver's license to rent a motorcycle. In 2009, while researching a guidebook for Bradt Travel Guides Ltd., a British publisher, I visited dozens of car-hire and motorcycle-rental outlets. Many of the former impressed me with their eagerness to match customers with vehicles, but three out of every four of the latter said they would rent scooters only to individuals holding ROC driver's licenses.

In Pingtung City, not one of the motorcycle-rental outfits near the railway station was willing to rent to foreigners holding international but not local licenses. This is a great shame, as some of Taiwan's nicest countryside and most authentic aboriginal villages are not far away.

Asked for the reasons behind this policy, rental-outlet owners said they did not want to pay fines accrued by people who may later be impossible to trace. A few also maintained that foreigners without local licenses may be unable to adapt to Taiwan's “special and dangerous” driving conditions (to use the words of the boss of one outlet in Yilan City).

The difficulties foreign tourists face when trying to rent motorcycles in Taiwan contrast starkly with the situation in Thailand. According to Greg Jorgensen, a Bangkok-based travel writer and blogger for CNN's CNNGo website, most motorcycle-hire businesses in the kingdom will rent to foreigners so long as the customer is willing to hand over his or her passport as collateral. “It's usually just a matter of you walking into a place, handing over some cash and a passport, and driving away,” says Jorgensen, a Canadian.

A few homestay owners in Taiwan are willing to act as guarantors if foreign guests wish to hire cars or motorcycles. One is Sunrise B&B (Tel: 06-992-0818; www.sunrisebb.idv.tw ) in the Penghu Islands. “We usually ask for the guests' passport [and] we ask if the guest has ridden a scooter before. We usually ask our guests to practice a little bit or show us they can ride a scooter,” says Sylvia Lyu, Sunrise's co-owner. “We don't ask for a deposit. It's pretty much an honor system.”

A few of Lyu's guests, mainly inexperienced riders, have had minor scooter accidents, sometimes because of Penghu's strong winds. “No broken bones, because poor riders are very slow, but they've suffered bad scratches and cuts that can ruin an island vacation involving water activities,” she says. None of her foreign guests has ever had a car accident or picked up a traffic ticket.

Lyu points out that while large car-rental companies are able to charge tickets to clients' credit cards long after the client and his card have left their premises, smaller businesses – such as Penghu's motorcycle-rental shops and her own homestay – do not have this capacity. She thinks if the government were to make paying traffic fines the responsibility of the foreign driver, rather than of the rental businesses, more rental shops would be willing to do business with foreigners.

After finding that a surprising number of motorcycle-rental business owners in Taiwan do not even seem to know that holders of international driving licenses are allowed to drive in the country, last September I wrote to the ROC Tourism Bureau. I stressed the importance and convenience of motorcycle rentals for visitors, and suggested the bureau work with the industry to make renting easier for tourists. The Bureau's reply was courteous, but its tone suggested zero interest in or concern about the issue.

http://www.amcham.com.tw/content/view/3004/451/