A few days ago I mentioned scooter accidents here in Taiwan, as well as talking about how scooters are such big business in Taiwan. Part of that business is helmet sales. In most areas of the city you can find helmet shops that are lined with various types of helmets. Sometimes it's nice to walk in and just see how many different designs there are.
Scooter drivers are women just as much as men. And usually parents will give their children a ride as well. Yep it's not unusual to see a parent with two little kids barely able to sit on the scooter. I can't help but think that this is horrible parenting and possibly illegal in some western countries, however it's common practice here. With the absurdly high scooter accident rates in Taiwan, I guess it's an easy way to distinguish a good parent from a bad one.
But because the whole family rides scooters, there must be helmets for people of all ages. Tiny ones with kid's cartoon characters for children. Cute girly ones and for little girls age 8 to 38. Although there aren't really any rude and obnoxious ones for young boys. Calvin peeing on things hasn't really made it over here yet.
Unfortunately the biggest problem is that people usually want to wear the smallest helmet possible. Ones that barely cover your head. The ones in the picture cover the back of the head which is surprising. Rare still are scooter riders wearing helmets that cover the full head, including the face. When you take the skimpy helmets and add the high accident rates, what you get is many people who have serious facial injuries. I was going to go into detail about this, but I'll just say that whatever you can imagine, it's worse. After all you are slamming face first into the pavement after going 50 mph.
The only people that really don't wear helmets are senior citizens. Also people will usually keep a smaller helmet with their scooter in case they ever need to give somebody else a ride. Which usually means that people who have the more serious injuries were actually the passenger.
Helmet wearing is the law here. If you do forget to wear one and get caught, the fine is quite low, I think around 15 bucks. In fact the no helmet ticket is the most received ticket in the country, but this is not because many people ride around without a ticket, it's because it's so cheap. So many people who get caught speeding or making a right turn on red (illegal here) will try to talk their way into getting the cheapest ticket possible, i.e. the no helmet ticket. Usually the code words are "please, I'm just a student!"
