Quote Originally Posted by Bulbazoth View Post
Here's another story: I met a friend who had an electric motorcycle. He was riding in the road when a Chinese woman ran out in front of him. He was probably going around 60-70kph, so the woman went flying and had a big gash on her head. Even though his bike was electric and it was the Chinese woman's fault, the police determined his ebike was "too fast" and they made him pay the 30,000+ yuan medical bills. He repaired the ebike, sold it, and now he rides an illegal 150cc. Lesson learned, he tried to be legal but got screwed over anyway!

It really isnt all that hard to avoid the traffic police in Nanjing...I have a Chinese friend who bought a 1000 kuai 125cc scooter and gets around just fine. He can even bribe the school guards with cigarettes to let him on campus. All you have to do is avoid the Xinjiekou area during the day, no problem! As for all this morality bullshit, what a joke... just because other people do it doesn't mean you should blah blah blah!!! This is China. The government pays people to drive around trucks and spray water on the road, explain that morality please. People drive on the wrong side of the road whether in a car or on a bike. People ride/drive without a license both in cars and on bikes. Soooo many people go through red lights, dont use signals, etc etc right in front of the police and the most ive seen them do is blow their whistle. You only get in trouble if you get in an accident or you get caught, so ride safe and dont get caught.

Bottom line: be aware, be safe, be courteous, dont hit anyone, dont get caught, and do whatever you want!
In China I have never seen a legally plated electric motorcycle. I'm sure someone has a Zero SR or Brammo something, but mostly they have illegally powerful e-scooters. So a legal ebike or scooter should have a max power of 200w or so which is about the same as when I ride my bicycle when I'm not hungover. Your friend doing 60-70kmh on their ebike was not legal in any way. You see for that speed you need at least 5kw (5000w) of power, meaning he or she should have had registration, insurance and a license. So they were not actually legal at all hence the fine.....Even though it was most likely the pedestrians fault, I agree she was probably not looking. However in China usually the bigger vehicle pays without other evidence (otherwise corruption and 'buy the facts' becomes the reality).

So really this doesn't pay in to your 'do whatever you like' anecdotal theory under closer examination.

Spraying water on the road is supposed to be 'jetting' to clear settled dust and make the road cleaner and safer. I agree it's stupid, why not just use regaular road sweepers? Why the need to lubricate the road surface? What BS. Fact is, they all drive cars with ABS so don't give a shit.

Although I can't disagree with 'ride safe and don't get caught' makes sense!

However the fact that other people Chinese or foreign ride or drive like retards doesn't give you any legal help. Go a court in any country and say 'but other people all drive/ ride like that!' They'll say: 'so you're pleading guilty?' See? It's meaningless. What other people do is utterly irrelevant in a court of law. Only what you did and what the law states.

I'm not trying to be an asshole or be a know-it-all. Just experience and making similar assumptions/mistakes as you in the past.