Round-Island Scooter Around Taiwan Update #2

Recently there has been some concerns on the mode of transportation that I should take when embarking on this journey. The issue is of traveling between a scooter and a car. After some thinking, heres my conclusion:

5 main categories can be argued between these two vehicles. These are:
-Safety
-Quality of Experience
-Equipment
-Ease of Travel
-Cost

Here are my opinions on these issues. 

Safety:
Indeed. Safety in this trip is of the highest priorty, especially this is a week long of traveling. Seeing how Taiwan has many scooter accidents in regards to careless bikers or ruthless drivers that hit them, it is clear that the obvious choice in terms of safety goes to traveling in a car. 

Quality of Experience:
Here the quality of experience is defined as person enjoyment of this trip. As such, it is more fun to travel in the less conventional way to go round-island. This trip is meant to be more about the journey, and not so much on the destinations that we'll visit. That being said, riding in a car would yield less rewards in completing this trip. My vote here goes to the scooter.

Equipment:
Equipment here represents everything that we might need for a week-long trip. This includes, but not limited to, personal clothings, safety equipments, first-aid, ration, and others. This category is a bit iffy in terms on which of the two vehicles would win, since it depends on the equipment we'll be carring. If there are alot of things to be brought along, then a car would be better. But if the items can fit in a heavy duty traveller's back-pack, then a scooter would be enough. So at this moment, I'm taking a conservative approach, and assume we'll be carrying alot of equipment. So my vote stands for having a car. 

Ease of Travel:
This category encompasses the whole aspect of travel. This includes how easy it is to find parking, to find repair shop, and to find areas of rest along the road. My vote here goes to the scooter. Heres why: First, parking will be ALOT easier with a scooter than a car. Especially in Taiwan, it is near impossible to find parking for a car with little effort and cheap parking rates. Next, a scooter wins in finding a repair shop than a car would, since scooter shops are littered throughout the entire country. Imagine the process needed if a car needs to be towed into a repair shop. Not only that, the time for repair of a scooter will be significantly faster than  of a car. Thirdly, a scooter is alot easier to pull over on the side of the road, if we were to get lost, or need some temprorary rest along the way. This goes back to the parking issue also. A scooter would be better when we pull in at night, since the places that we'll be staying would be in home-owned hostles, most of them have little or no parking for cars (unless motel). So in this category, the scooter has my vote. 

Cost:
Lastly, the cost of having a scooter versus a car is of an issue. Considering the cost of rent (including deposit/insurance), gas, and repair fees, my vote goes to the scooter here. 

Heres a summary between these two vehicles:

Scooter wins 3:2. And this is assuming conservatively in favor of a car too. 

More updates to come soon. 

rOar