When I was learning to drive my dad told me that I need to always, always, ALWAYS check my mirrors, as well as, make a shoulder check when changing lanes. As my dad put it, this is just “common sense”.
Fast forward a decade, almost two, and I have been in Taipei for slightly more than half a decade. Here the standard practise while driving is to worry about what is in front of you and hope the vehicles behind you do the same. This irritates me to no end. Isn’t it just “common sense” to check before you change lanes or make a turn?
So, as we all know, the basic meaning of the term “common sense” is a way of thinking that is shared by everyone around us. Therefore, if everyone is doing something a certain way but you do it differently then you do not share in the “common sense”. So as a foreigner that checks my mirrors before cutting someone off, I basically do not have any “common sense”.
I still find it very frustrating reacting to drivers on the roads in Taipei doing things that, in my mind, go against “common sense”. However, since I am now aware of this way of Taiwanese driving, I no longer swear at other drivers on the road as much as I used to. Well, out loud anyways.
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Hello & Welcome! My name is Matt and I’m a Canadian living in Taipei, Taiwan. Here you’ll find me musing about social networking, web services, and internet business. While you’re here, look at the 
