Picture this: you are walking outside, fully immersed in the quiet rhythm of a Saturday afternoon, when a scooter suddenly screeches past on the road next to the sidewalk. You could argue it’s a minor, privileged complaint—and logically, it is. But logic doesn’t stop the sudden spike of irritation from entirely breaking your zen. In heavy congestion, the high concentration of scooters generates significant noise pollution and unpleasant exhaust emissions. Individuals should not have to rely on face masks merely to avoid inhaling scooter exhaust. This infringes on my personal freedom. To complicate matters, unlike Harley-Davidson riders in the United States, practical commuters are impossible to shame because they aren’t attention-seeking morons.

To a Western audience, please note that when I say ‘scooters,’ I am referring to lightweight motorcycles. In developing countries like India, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, scooters are highly popular because many individuals and families cannot afford cars. In the absence or inadequacy of public transit infrastructure—such as buses, mass rapid transit (MRT), and high-speed rail—scooters typically emerge as the primary mode of personal mobility. Naturally, per capita scooter usage fell in the early 2000s in nations like Japan, South Korea, and Singapore as they transitioned into fully developed economies. Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is the only advanced high-income economy in the world where scooters operate as one of the main forms of daily transportation.

To understand why Taiwan’s massive scooter culture is such a fascinating anomaly, it helps to first look at a few baseline facts about the country. The ROC governs a population of over 23 million people, centered on the main island of Taiwan and supplemented by several smaller territories, including Kinmen, Penghu, Matsu, Wuqiu, Dongsha, and Taiping. Taiwan sets a global standard that includes a top-tier National Health Insurance system, highly efficient MRT networks, and a comprehensive high-speed rail connecting all major cities. Additionally, citizens enjoy ultra-fast, affordable internet alongside accessible postal banking services. Taiwan produces over 90% of the world’s most advanced microchips—largely through Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)—making global supply chains critically vulnerable to any disruption on the island. Several major electronics brands, including Asus, Acer, Gigabyte, MSI, D-Link, and Transcend, are based in Taiwan.

Taiwan boasts a robust MRT network, particularly in Taipei, where getting around the city without a car is effortless. Many Taipei MRT stations and major transit hubs feature extensive shopping and dining areas, alongside interconnected underground malls. Travelers arriving at Taoyuan International Airport can take the budget-friendly MRT directly to Taipei Main Station. The high-speed rail links major cities like Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung, with frequent buses and taxis bridging the gap in smaller towns. Don’t just take my word for it; a quick YouTube search will show you. I often see cars like the Toyota RAV4 and Nissan X-Trail (known as the Rogue in the U.S.) on the road, with the occasional Porsche, BMW, Lexus, or Ferrari. Yet, despite all this progress, Taiwan remains stuck in the past when it comes to managing its roughly 15 million registered scooters.

The marginal shift from 15.17 million registered scooters in 2011 to 14.6 million today demonstrates that a decade of time has not fundamentally altered Taiwan’s deeply ingrained scooter culture. At this rate, it will take a full century just to halve the number of active scooters. We don’t want to ban scooters; we just need to scale back their volume to situations where they actually make sense. Scooters certainly have their place—they’re one of the best ways to handle individual food delivery for apps like foodpanda or Uber Eats. They also make sense in smaller towns and cities where public transit is limited.

Scooter users cite affordability and convenience as their main motivations. I get that people should be free to choose how they get around, but how do we handle the safety issues that come with it? You will never see entire families and wild monkeys stacked onto a single scooter like you do in India, but the high volume of scooters here still presents a real challenge. Taiwanese drivers tend to follow traffic rules and keep honking to a minimum, but the local scooter culture reveals that there is still significant room for improvement. Navigating Taipei’s heavy traffic can be dangerous, with dozens of scooters constantly swerving around you or suddenly cutting in front of your vehicle. The convenience of scooters for riders often comes at the expense of drivers, who face the constant stress of trying to avoid a serious collision. With Taiwan News reporting that scooters are involved in over 60% of traffic accidents, cutting the number of registered scooters in half would drastically reduce accidents nationwide.

Taipei’s public transit makes individual scooters highly unnecessary. Between the extensive MRT network, reliable buses, and the occasional 15-minute walk, most daily commuting needs are seamlessly covered. Even if you prefer air-conditioned comfort over walking, you can easily hail a taxi nearly anywhere in the city within five minutes. Short-distance taxi rides are highly affordable and strictly metered to prevent overcharging. Public transit is very affordable, but buying a scooter pays for itself in the long run despite the higher upfront price. Unlike cars, which face expensive parking fees, scooters in Taiwan benefit from loose regulations and abundant free parking, making the country’s deep-rooted scooter habit incredibly difficult to break. Politicians from all three major parties are avoiding the scooter issue for fear of a voter backlash at the polls.

Despite Taiwan’s progressive, community-oriented culture, breaking Taiwan’s scooter habit will take more than just transportation reforms—it requires structural changes outside the transit sector. Although Taiwan has lower wealth inequality than Japan, long considered an East Asian benchmark, overall wage growth has failed to keep pace with rising housing prices. Taiwan’s housing demand has skyrocketed, driven by ultra-low mortgage rates—often under 3%—and government-backed programs for first-time homebuyers. This demand, combined with a traditional focus on owning a home, has helped push housing costs higher. Rather than risking difficult tenant dynamics, billionaire and multi-millionaire investors often prefer to maintain vacant properties, treating real estate strictly as speculative assets. As homeownership costs rise, many individuals look to offset their expenses by choosing more economical transportation, like a scooter.

Indirectly linked to the scooter issue is another problem: the majority of high-paying jobs are concentrated in just a few key industries, including semiconductor and IC design, IT and consumer electronics, specialized transportation and maritime logistics, and healthcare specialists. Teachers previously enjoyed highly secure pensions, which allowed them to comfortably retire at age 50 after 25 years of service. However, under the guise of “pension reform,” the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) significantly dismantled this retirement system. Despite its other political shortcomings, the Kuomintang Party (KMT) remains much more aligned with social democratic ideals in this regard. The concentration of high-wages in a few key industries excludes millions of low-wage workers in the retail, hospitality, and food service sectors, who stand to benefit the most from the cost advantages of scooters.

The scooter problem should be blamed on a combination of failed government policies as well as individual choices. While it is true that scooter ownership is very affordable, so is public transit. Taiwan’s recycling rate far exceeds that of the United States; the nation properly recycles 58% of its general waste and over 80% of its industrial waste. Initiated in the 1990s, the 4-in-1 recycling program is a commendable model for waste management. The process begins at the household level, where residents sort waste into general garbage, recyclables, and compost. Recyclables are further categorized into paper, plastics, metals, glass, and electronics. From there, local government cleaning teams, private collection enterprises, and dedicated recycling funds collaborate to manage and process the materials.

If Taiwan could transform itself from the “Garbage Island” of the 1980s into a global recycling leader, it can certainly solve its scooter problem. Tackling this challenge is entirely possible; it simply requires the political will to make it a reality. The growing frustration with scooter congestion is shared by many residents across Taiwan. The pollution and safety challenges posed by Taiwan’s 14 million scooters contrast sharply with its reputation as a technologically advanced nation. Given Taiwan’s complex geopolitical landscape—where its sovereign reality is frequently obscured by pressure from a less advanced neighbor—cultivating a sophisticated global image is essential to cementing its status as an advanced nation. Decongesting our streets by significantly reducing the number of registered scooters would be a powerful step forward. We face a fundamental choice: do we allow scooters to project an image of weakness for our developed nation, or do we push forward to fulfill the grand goals established by our founding father, Sun Yat-sen, through the Three Principles of the People?