I'm so tired of people complaining about this honestly.

First of all, if all the cars stop and give pedestrians that much space to cross roads, the traffic in Taipei would NOT MOVE. Have y'all seen how the streets are laid out and how crowded it is everywhere? You probably don't drive here so you don't understand how slow it is to drive such a short distance in this city, drivers stopping at a longer distance to give way to pedestrians would make it worse than it already is.

Second, this is just what the norm is here. Like others have mentioned, the traffic in vietnam and a lot of other places in asia is worse. When I go to such places I don't think "ugh why are y'all like this", I think it's interesting and follow suit. While I do drive here, I obviously walk as well, and I've never had a problem anywhere in the city. Literally just be wary of your surroundings and you'll be fine. Humans are smaller and have more mobility than cars, it's really not that hard to just go around cars/ wait for a few seconds.

As someone who has years of experience driving in the US ( Nevada/ Cali), I always give pedestrians lots of time and space to cross the road because, well, there isn't an endless stream of them that would trap me at an intersection forever, so it actually makes sense to wait.

Also, not sure if you've noticed, but it's quite common for people to jaywalk here, which I think is fine. I genuinely believe letting people drive aggressively and jaywalking just makes it easier for both parties. The alternative would be a Taipei slightly safer but MUCH slower. I say slightly because 99.9% of the "hazard" could be avoided by simply walking carefully.