上班族必備軟實力

*Richard has lived in Taiwan for more than 15 years and drives both car and scooter. He says he is an excellent driver.

When I prepared for the driving test for Taiwan, I read the rule book. The laws are almost exactly like they are in America. The major exception is the rule for scooters to drive on the right side of the road, which has been largely ignored and not enforced.

Left Turn Only

In America, there is sometimes painted on the pavement, an arrow that curves to the left in a 90 degree angle. That means that the lane is for making left turns only. That way, if a driver is not going to turn, they will know to change into a lane that is for going straight. In Taiwan, they have these lane with the same arrows, but they don’t mean anything. You will find people going straight, turning left, and even turning right.

Lanes

In America, there are dotted lines painted on the street. These serve to differentiate the various lanes, one from another. Drivers will know to keep their vehicles to one side of the dotted line, usually to the right. In Taiwan, there are also dashed lines in the roads, but they don’t mean anything. Some people like to keep wheels on either side of the line so that they can make quick moves either to the left or to the right. Sometimes we find that more than one car can fit in a “lane” at the same time.

When is an arrow not an arrow?

Stop Signs

In the USA, they sometime put up red signs. These signs are hexagonal and have the word, stop, painted in big white letters. Cars and other vehicles approaching such a sign are required to come to a complete stop before moving forward when traffic allows. In Taiwan, you don’t see these very often, and the word ‘stop’ is in Chinese. But if you do happen to come across one, don’t worry about it. They don’t mean anything, just keep driving. That’s what everybody else does.

Stop Lights

In my country, red lights means stop, green lights means go, and yellow lights indicate that you should slow down and prepare to stop. In Taiwan green means go, yellow means go, and red means go if you are fast enough and if you honk first. Taiwan is the only place I’ve heard someone say, “It just turned red, you can still go.”

Taiwan is a wonderful and exciting country, but until you know the rules of the road, which are not written down, you should not be driving. As foreigners, we sometimes get critical of the road conditions, but deep down inside, we know that if everyone followed the rules as written down, the traffic would most likely freeze and nobody could get anywhere.

Please relax and drive safely. Or just take the bus or MRT. See you next time.

【作者介紹】

Richard 是一位台灣女婿，在台灣生活15年，喜愛台灣文化，以風趣幽默的文筆，細膩獨特的觀點，介紹在台灣生活的趣事，一起跟著Richard探訪外國人的台灣世界吧！