A couple of nights ago, en route to a private
English lesson, I experienced the 'when' (not 'if') side of traffic accidents,
which the Taiwan Lonely Planet guide forewarns of.
It was a wet, rainy evening. Turning left at
a T-bone intersection...no stoplights...one of those ones I sarcastically state
my love for. I guess I slipped (though in retrospect, someone may have lightly
bumped me from behind, since I went off to the right), and next thing I knew I
was flying over the handle bars. Wheee! Thump.
I jumped up quickly (middle of an
intersection and all) and walked (limped) to the side of the road to assess my
situation. Sore wrists, sore leg. Then I remembered the scooter...and there it
was lying in the middle of the street, still running. I limped back to it and
picked it up and wheeled it off to the side of the road.
No one stopped, which is generally the custom
here. If anyone stops and gives the wrong help, they can be sued apparently.
Also, with the speed and agility with which I jumped up off the road to avoid
being run over, I probably didn't appear to be in any big trouble.
And so I was a bit rattled, but otherwise
fine, and the scooter ran fine too, so I just continued my journey to do my
private English lesson.
Yesterday it really
hurt though...went to the hospital and they gave a general checkup. A fairly
useless visit I think ˆ I told the doc of all my major aches and he sent me to
the radiologist, who proceeded to x-ray only my right wrist. I think that
justified him in saying he checked me over and validated the hospital to charge
me $NT 1000 (about $45 CAD, which is what I got for the one-hour private English
lesson). I guess scooter accidents are fairly commonplace...I saw all kinds of
people limping around with their helmets. The doc told me to be careful and set
me up with a 2-day supply of aspirin (far less generous than the doctors of
Thailand).
While in the hospital I was witness to what
happens to accident victims who wear the local brand of helmets: there was blood
Pouring out of a young fellow's head. He lay there covered in blood, only a few
feet away from me. The nurse held a towel to his head and smiled at me while I
watched on. No curtains.
