Photos and video by MJ Klein
This morning, my wife and I were on the way to the highway exit when we stopped to get a few things at the local 7-11. I was driving, and I parked (our new) car on the side of the road in a legal space and turned on the flashers. My wife went to the store and I stayed in the car with Phoenix. After my wife returned, Phoenix wanted a bottle so Hui-chen began preparing the bottle when a bus struck our left mirror, virtually shearing it off.
This is the bus, after I honked my horn to induce him to pull over. The driver turned out to be unpleasurable to deal with.
This is the driver, apparently trying to look tough. He really got upset with us about his hitting us. He complained that we were too close to the intersection and that’s why he hit us. If you look at the previous photo, you will see a red line going around the corner to the right. That is the intersection’s no parking zone, and you can clearly see that we are quite far behind that line. No, we’re not too close to the intersection. He got more and more angry, and made threatening gestures to us, often shouting like a madman. Several times he said he was going to take off and my wife told him to go ahead, since we already photographed he and the bus, and have called the police. Naturally, he chickened out and stayed until the police came.
He did one thing that neither Hui-chen or I can figure out. Both of us got out of the car after he hit us. He accused us of switching seats. Later when the police arrived, he implied that I probably don’t have a driver’s license. But I had been sitting in the front seat for most of the time while waiting for the police to arrive. When the police officer asked me for my driver’s license right in front of the bus driver, I pulled out my brand-new 6 year license and handed it to him.
The debris on the road from the accident. Notice the glass element in the lower left (more on this later).
The reverse angle.
The stump of the mirror. Notice the green strip antenna for the radio. The mirrors are electric, and have heating elements, so this isn’t going to be cheap.
I had to drive the car to the repair shop, so I whipped up this makeshift mirror by taping a bicycle mirror on the stump. It worked well enough for me to drive safely to the shop.
The following is a video clip taken from our dash camera. The bus driver was in the bus, apparently making himself more and more angry, and he decided to come out and give us a dose of verbal abuse, in conjunction with some violence. At the end of the clip, he picks up the glass element from the mirror and throws it down on the sidewalk in anger. This guy is a real class act.
It’s time for some good old fashioned internet humiliation, so please share this around.
Very annoying to have your morning ruined like that.
Too bad we didn’t get to meet you because of that guy’s driving incompetence. Hope to see you next year again, though – and if you ever make it to Munich, let us know we’ll show you around. 🙂
Stefan, your comment is the 6,000th. just thought you’d like to know!
You’re right, a real class act. Let’s hope he doesn’t decide to settle matters the Taiwanese way by getting a group of his buddies together to try to intimidate you. Is he or the bus company going to pay the cost of repairing the mirror?
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hi Jim. on the other hand, if he does, i’ll just send my own Taiwanese guys to explain it to him, hehe. our insurance company has taken care of it and it’s fixed already. of course, the bus driver disputes having done anything wrong, so we’ll end up suing him. eventually, he or his company will pay. thanks Jim. real nice hanging out with you on your last day in Taiwan. take care.
A tour bus! No surprise here!
Todd´s last post ..Zhua Zhou – Picking the Future!
ungentlemanly conduct: no surprise there, either! thanks Todd.
Figured it was a tour bus.
Back in March… 2 “Chinese owned” bus lines that travel between South Station and Chinatown in NYC were shutdown. They had many safety issues… but a bit worse than taking a mirror off of a car (bus rollover injuring 34… collisions with guardrails.concrete dividers, bus caught on fire on the Mass Pike, a 2 foot by 4 foot hole in the floor of one bus, even one bus losing their two rear wheels on the Mass Pike).
The two companies are trying to get approval to start up business again. One of the two companies has reported spending $1 million to upgraded their buses.
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hi Mike. i am not surprised. when will people learn?
What a jerk he is! Glad that all the 3 of you are fine. I like the part you handed the police your driver’s license. Hey hey! That smacked the bus driver right on his face!!!!
hi Yu-fen! this is indeed, a rare pleasure to have you commenting on our blog! so nice to see you here. yes, he was a jerk. when the police officer asked to see my driver’s license, i found another question to ask him, delaying my response to his request, and gave the appearance that i was stalling (i’m SO bad!). but then i handed my brand new 6 year license to him and the bus driver got mysteriously quiet. i just love it when trash talkers are forced into silence! lol take care Yu-fen, and please say hello to SJ for us.
That’s brilliant – too funny. 🙂