Department of Transportation

While changing lanes to the left when travelling along Jilong Road, motorcyclist Yang collided with a bus at its rear left that was traveling straight at the time; motorcyclist Guo fell on Bade Road while overtaking between a motorcycle on the front right and a bus on the left side, and was run over by the bus; motorcyclist Li drove over a pothole while travelling along Yanping North Road, and fell under the wheels of a bus on the right hand side; while travelling straight on Jianguo South Road, motorcyclist Zeng crashed into a taxi in front and rebounded and fell under the wheels of a tractor truck on the left; motorcyclist Zhan lost control while travelling along Jilong Road and slid under the wheels of a bus on the right. The list of fatal accidents like this can go on and on, where motorcyclists were crushed by oversized vehicles. When making an application for traffic accident inspection, the family members of the deceased often claim: “the oversized vehicle bullied the smaller vehicle and didn’t pay attention to the front and the sides of the vehicle; there must be gross negligence causing death.” Even though death occurred, the result of these traffic accident inspection and their reviews often unanimously held that the oversized vehicles were not at fault! The families of the deceased always found it difficult to accept such results and expressed: “someone has died, but the perpetrators are not held responsible at all!?”
The Department of Transportation points out that oversized vehicles have many inherent unfavorable characteristics such as having a long side with a high probability of collision, blind spots, large area of undercarriage, heavy tonnage, etc.; thus even the slightest run over will cause death or serious injury. According to the Taipei City A1 accident statistics, the average probability of a fatal accident for oversized vehicles is as much as 60 times that of smaller vehicles! This shows that it is easy for oversized vehicles to not see the other party because of blind spots, directly causing fatal accidents with its large and bulky body. However, on the road, we often see motorcycles overtake, dodge, change directions and lane split near oversized vehicles; clearly, motorcyclists do not know just how dangerous oversized vehicles are! What can we do? The answer is simple: steer clear of oversized vehicles and keep a distance of more than 2 meters away from oversized vehicles at all times. The above cases show that the long sides of oversized vehicles are very dangerous areas; riding parallel to a moving oversized vehicle should be avoided. You should not overtake, dodge, change directions or lane split at the sides of oversized vehicles and should not be too confident that the driver of the oversized vehicle has seen you. A horrific vehicle accident video on Youtube with a very high hit rate is an example: a semitrailer stopped at a red light, and when the lights turned green, it was suspected that because the driver’s seat was too high up, the driver did not notice a pedestrian crossing close to the front of the vehicle. It was not until the pedestrian was run over that the driver noticed and braked the vehicle. Given that the blind spots of oversized vehicle are extremely wide, please “steer away from oversized vehicles” to be safe.
When motorcyclists and pedestrians are involved in an accident with oversized vehicles, regardless of who is responsible, the reality of it is that the dead or the injured will always be the motorcyclist or the pedestrian. Hence, it is important to always “steer clear of oversized vehicles” and actively keep a safety distance of over 2 meters. We also ask drivers of oversized vehicles to recognize the high risk factors of driving these vehicles; thus, more caution should be taken, and they should drive in a gentle and kind manner and actively keep a safe distance from other road users. Do not ignore these rules just to be faster; otherwise huge compensation for accidents, imprisonment and unspeakable psychological scarring may follow.

2012-04-27