Traffic: Organized Chaos

When we first arrived in Taipei the traffic on the roads seemed terrifying. So many scooters pouring through intersections like a waterfall. I was so relieved that we had a beautiful bike path to cycle out of the city on. At that point I was pretty intimidated about what road cycling would be like in Taiwan.

With more than three weeks under our belts I feel I can share some general reflections of our experiences on the road. Road riding is essential to cycling in Taiwan, with much of Route Number 1 on highways.

There are many systems in place that make cycling on Taiwanese highways considerably safer than in Canada. On larger roads scooters and cyclists have a separate lane with a concrete barrier between it and the car lane. In addition to this lane there is often a large shoulder to the right of of it. These shoulders are well maintained and we have only very rarely encountered debris on them.

Intersections on highways and in the cities are also very different from what we are accustomed to. Almost all intersections, even with minor roads, have traffic lights. Bikes and scooters move up in front of the cars to a marked box and get to clear the intersection first. If you need to turn left then you go to the box to the right on the perpendicular street and then cross the intersection normally. Generally this works very well. Right turning cars yield to the bike/scooter lane. It can be quite packed up in the scooter box but we find as long as you pick your line and go slowly the scooters pass safely. Everyone moves very slowly in intersections and perhaps that is the intention of having so many traffic lights. Leaving the city of Taichung we must have added on an hour to our ride from all the red lights, but if that’s the cost of being safe I’ll take it.

So far Gord has only been in two traffic accidents. Actually just bumped twice by scooters who failed to notice his trailer as they cut across it. On both occasions it happened at very low speeds with no damage. Taiwan does have a very high number of vehicle accidents, but I like to think that a lot of them are our similar to our mishaps.

Tonight is our last night on the west coast of Taiwan. Today we circled the southern tip, having a brief glimpse of the east coast, before circling back to the western side. Tomorrow we climb up and over the mountains to head north along the east coast. We will leave behind the densely populated western half of the country and with it much of the traffic.