Parking a car the Taiwanese way
Although I’m sure road rules exist in Taiwan I’m yet to see any evidence of it. The police just seem to cruise around not doing too much and Taiwanese drivers take full advantage of this.
A typical day observing a busy intersection in Taiwan is more potent then an entire season of ‘World’s Worst Drivers’. Seriously with some of the crap I’ve seen pulled I’m surprised countries haven’t flat out rejected international driver’s licenses from Asian countries.
Unfortunately it’s not just driving a car that Asian people seem to have a problem doing, even parking a car presents challenges in itself.
My favourite parking style is the hazard lights manoeuvre. A car will be going down a busy street and because the driver wants to grab some food, have a chat with a mate or just get out and go for a walk, he or she will simply pull over to the side and flick the hazard lights on.
The car will be blocking at a minimum half the lane and cause traffic chaos with the driver nowhere to be seen but everybody is cool with it. After all the driver has clearly indicated that his or her car is a hazard by flicking the lights on.
My second favourite parking maneuver has got to be the Taiwanese vertical stack, beautifully illustrated here:
Note the age of the cars and surrounding scrub. This would indicate that the drivers were elderly and have probably forgotten where they initially parked their cars.
I’m not exactly sure what the real reason was behind these two cars just sitting next to someone’s house… but I’m sure there’s a perfectly sound explanation as to why you’d need to vertically stack what looks like a random generic sedan and hatchback, both of which have clearly been in an accident(s).
Any ideas?
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