On the matter of vehicles

The area of Taiwan that we are staying in is heavily populated. The town of Koushain, (yes, I am spelling it differently every time), has a population of over 2 million people. This results in a lot of people and with that large number of people comes the need to transport them.
The city is in a portion of Taiwan that I've been told only has rain during the monsoon season, the rest of the time it is fairly dry. This makes the use of scooters very popular. In fact, I would say that the number of scooters on the street outnumbers the cars by about 15 to 1. They zoom around, cutting through any space that is available to them. Think of Sturgis, but instead of bikers there are scooters populated with every possible person that you can think of, businessmen, mothers with children, teens, construction workers, little old ladies, dogs and their owners and everything else you can think of. If it can fit on a scooter, it will be on a scooter. It's not uncommon to see a family of four semi comfortably zooming through traffic on the way about their business. I've found that the safest way to maneuver through the scooters is to treat them like a swarm of hornets; don't get near the biggest packs, don't make any sudden movements and let them move around you, don't try to avoid them yourself.
There are some unique things that I have noticed with "those that ride with the swarm." Even though it's amazingly warm here the majority of the people who ride on the scooters wear jackets backward, with the buttons on the back. They also have what looks like oven mitts on the handlebars and face masks, which make them look like rejects from a Mad Max remake.
Now the masks I can understand, there is a lot of smog and pollution in this town, but the masks seem to be more stylish and decorative than an actual filter mask. After talking with my host mother, she giggled and explained to me that the reasoning behind all the covering was that the ladies don't want to get very dark, so they try to keep themselves covered as much as possible. I've actually seen some people so covered up that all you can see are their eyes peering behind masks and coverings. These attempts at protecting themselves from the sun provides an overall sinister look to the packs that constantly zip through the streets of the town.
Another useful thing about using scooters is that they are easy to park. On almost every available sidewalk and spare curbside you can find scooters parked 2-3 deep. If I was staying any longer in in this place I think that getting a scooter would be a great investment, I don't even think I'd feel like a wimp if I drove one here.