One of those guys!

Amy: "You are one of those guys!"
Dr. Cook : "What one of those guys."
Amy: "Those guys who drive their motorcycles on the sidewalk." (Look closely in the photo how the pedestrian actually YEILDED to the guy on the scooter ON-A-SIDEWALK!)

I was talking about motorcycles in Taipei with Dr. Cook. We were in Taipei at the same time some 20 years ago, I believe we lived in the same 10-mile radius, but never found out until we started chatting a while back. What a small world!

My experience with motorcycles in Taipei was limited, other than on one occasion, riding with a guy friend for 3 minutes, he was showing off his brand new cool muscle bike, he insisted that I'd be his first passenger. Most of the time, I was just hoping they wouldn't kill me. It would not be cool if my mother receive a call saying that her daughter was killed in a motorcycle accident while walking on a sidewalk.

I had a very close encounter with a motorcycle within the first week after I arrived at Taipei. (For those who didn't know, I got my undergrad degree in National Taiwan University (Tai Da).) Just walking from campus along a narrow sidewalk to get some fruit, a motorcycle zoomed up from behind me. At first I heard a loud motor roaring towards me, not knowing what it could be, I turned around to check it out. Then I saw this long-legged guy on a scooter charging towards me in full speed. He had a helmet on, which I found out later was pretty unusual, so I could not see his face. In a split second, I hopped to the side of the sidewalk, but I was blocked by a line of at least 10-15 scooters that were parked on the sidewalk. I managed to squeeze in between two scooters, just in time for the motocycle to zoom by. That guy's long leg actually touched my skirt! That was close.

They drove on the sidewalk because the road is jammed up, or not jammed up, it doesn't matter. Well, for one thing, there is no traffic lights to obey on the sidewalk. Dr. Cook even said this was the one "traffic law" that his friend told him when he first got his motorbike: "When the road is jammed up, use the sidewalk." (Now I wonder if that long-legged guy I encountered was him!) I was in awe when I saw for the first time a family of 5 all on one motorcycle making a turn on a busy street, with the mother holding a toddler and a huge watermelon! After a few years of seeing people carrying all sorts of cargos on their motorbikes, I was not surprised anymore.

Dr. Cook said since then the mayor of Taipei has cleaned up the messy traffic. I do hope so, since I have not been back since I graduated. There are many amazing things that Taiwanese do with their motorbikes or scooters. If China is the bicycle capital of the world, Taiwan is definitely the scooter capital of the universe.

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