Driving in Taiwan for the first time

I was in Taiwan for a family trip in end Mar 2024 for about 10 days. Yep we were there when the Hualian earthquake happened, that’s a story for another day. Wanna tell you about the driving before I forget.

Click here to skip through the long ass stories and go straight for the practical tips.

To give you some background - I grew up in Malaysia and have been driving for 10+ years on the right-hand drive. Driving a left-hand drive car is kinda like you’re a right hander trying to write with your left hand.. lol kkk not as bad, but some adjustments require to your usual habit.

Btw I was driving the same Proton Saga since I graduated from Uni. It’s a super basic car without the fancy digital dashboard and you literally do pull up the handbrake. So for Taiwan, I have decided to spice things up with Ford 😎 hehe well, for practical reason we needed the boot space, it was just nice for two 27” and one cabin size luggage plus one laptop bag.

Image credits to Paul Tan.org

Image credits to Caricos.com

Okies so when I took the car from the rental place, the staff obviously knew that I’m new to this fancy car too lol he went through almost every buttons and clicks in the car patiently with me. We picked the car up from Chiayi (嘉義) and drove to Taichung (台中) then finally returned in Taipei (台北).

First booboo happened in 5 mins after I drove out of the rental place. I drove into a motorcycle lane 😅 大佬… who on earth would realise that when the lane is as wide as the car road. Well thankfully there weren’t much traffic as we are in the outskirt area. No issue 😤 with this I learnt that motorcycle lane has a white huge Chinese traditional words “機車專用” on the road.

FYI: 機車專用 = 机车专用 (simplified Chinese) = Only for motorcycle

Then I made it to hotel to load up the luggage’s and check out and next stop is sun moon lake (日月潭). Just as we drove off from the hotel (it’s right beside the main road) onto the first traffic light. I heard people honking me - first reaction was: “aiyo it’s red light, drivers here are impatient 😒”. Just another 5 secs another driver honked me. This split second I looked into my rear mirror and felt bare, like something is missing. The lines of the back mirror is missing. We forgot to close the boot and left it open!!😱🫣 these people are just trying to let me know 🥹 ……… this was the situation that I thought my dad will close the boot after loading the luggages and my dad thought I’d click the cool close boot button from the driver seat.

Yep thanks to the friendly drivers in Chiayi, my sister’s company laptop bag was safe 😇 the bag was on top of all the luggages and it’s loose. Definitely will end up on the street if I have made the first left turn on the traffic light.

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Tips for driving in Taiwan

• Speed limit is not a joke 😪
  

In the suburban city like Chiayi, speed limit like 70kmph on highway does makes you think about life. On the main highways they do have higher speed limit like 110kmph. Times when you saw other cars going faster than the speed limit, you might be thinking the speed camera is just for show. It will be all sunshine and rosy, until you returned the car, went back home and one day you received and email from your car rental that looks like this - and you know you F up 😶‍🌫️

So guess what, they gave me not one but two 牛肉乾, aka speed tickets 😔 Here’s the drill, your car rental company would taken your credit card details from the beginning and warned you that should there be any damages or fines they will charge directly onto the card. Basically the process is pretty seamless, you receive the email and you will the charges (Fine amount plus 7% handling fee) on the card in a day or two.

The two emails that I received for speed ticket. lol not sure if they do have English version. Basically they have included an image of the speed ticket issued by the traffic police and evidence of the car picture captured by speed camera. Well, the price point is higher than Malaysia but cheaper than countries like Singapore and Australia 🫣 Aiya best is just keep to the speed limit and buffer enough time for your travel.

• Navigating app

I was interchanging between Waze and Google Map. Waze has better intel on speed camera 😛 but Google map somehow has better accuracy on the road in my view. I’d suggest to use both just in case, also some navigation sometimes goes into Chinese mode by showing roads in Chinese words. I mean no issue for me, but if you’re don’t read Chinese then it’s safer to have both apps ready.

• Traffic lights

Two tips to highlight for traffic lights:

1. Blinking yellow lights. This is a prequel of red light. I have no idea why some places have the yellow lights blinking forever without turning red, but just don’t take the risk. When you see blinking yellow lights, slow down towards the junction and get ready to stop; if you can pass through the junction then go ahead and pick up the speed later. Don’t take the risk of speeding up, honestly you won’t have a clue as to when the light would turn red.
   

2. Similar to Singapore style where you can actually turn left IF there are no oncoming traffic from your opposite.

• Indoor parking

Be careful on those old building with tight entrance... this is meant for PRO only. Amateur enters at your own risk, click here for one of the example - this is an indoor parking smack right in the middle of Ximenting, very convenient spot. Checkout the pictures from google and you will know what I mean, it's the old school structure where they have two layers (upper and lower deck) of parking to maximize the limited space. This means you have to park your car aligning perfectly into the metal box, not to mentioned the curvy narrow circular way in. I was literally SWEATING! Everything is so near, my car sensor beeping like fire alarm. I went in all the way and did a three point turn out.

This parking at Emei parking is a much better option, very near Ximenting too. Generally parking isn't cheap, but well its part of the cost that you should factor in if you want to rent a car in Taiwan.

• Free parking in Ximenting (西門町)

Roadside parking! I think it's almost impossible to find a parking along ximenting area, this area is about 10-15mins walk away from the buzzling shoplot areas. The location is around 寶慶大樓, for the 4 nights in Taipei it was quite easy to get one here.

Overall - it was a pleasant experience althought it does take some time to get tuned to the left-hand drive. Taiwan drivers are overall pretty polite, except in city area like Ximenting people can get a little angsty. Highly recommended if you are traveling with old parents, this definitely save lots of time and energy with public transport!