We've been wondering why Taiwanese drivers are generally so much ruder and uncompromising, while the people are generally so friendly, polite, and hospitable. Driving on the streets, it feels like everyone just cares about themselves. Many tailgate, cut lines, weave through traffic, drive on the shoulder... whatever they need to do to get ahead faster. These behaviors seem like a stark contrast to our impression of people in our everyday encounters: strangers we meet are nice and helpful, and I find it pretty easy to strike up a friendly conversation with people. All in all, the society feels much warmer than the in US.
So why is the driving behavior so much the opposite? It puzzles us. This weekend my sister made a very good hypothesis: aha, it's all because of the tinted windows!! Most if not all cars in Taiwan have dark, tinted windows covering all but the front sides of the car, making it impossible to see who's inside. Ashing thinks because of this, there's no "face threat" when you behave in a rude way. Nobody will see the driver's face. You can be an executive, a professor, a nun, or gangster... nobody can see when you drive aggressively. You are just that white Mazda, green Toyota, or the big oil tanker. There's no need to be kind or polite when you are only identified as a particular car. People can't even make a cursing gesture to you when you did something wrong. They simply don't know who's inside that car!
I was convinced by this possibility, though I am sure it's more complicated than simply the color of the windows. In any case, I think it may be worth a try for the government to ban the use of dark tinted windows. It'll at least make some people be more self-conscious when driving. Just a thought.
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The hypothesis is but a confession of my own driving psychology. I do find it interesting that, if this theory stands, as Taiwanese drivers become more anonymous to each other, they also grow more alert to the everpresent eyes of hidden cameras. Human-human communication is replaced by human-surveillance machine communication. So instead of negotiating dirty glances or nods of approval, the shame of "behaving badly" or the image of politeness, we do things to please the selective eye of the camera--like fasten seat belts and stop at redlight. Better yet, we get a machine to tell us when the it sees another machine.
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