Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jjajangmyun]

out of total curiosity...

drove out with my gf once to party, we both got hammered, and then she called somebody to come pick us up and drive us back to her place but using her car!

but then how the hell does the driver get back home? after we paid him some ridiculously low fee, he literally just started walking off into the night! does he call a cab? someone else to come get him? perplexed... what if we had lived all the way out in the boonies?

this was in daegu btw. it wasn't seoul where he could've found a taxi in 5 minutes. and her place was outside the city a bit.

[oppa637]

They are called Dae rhee. I think they are awesome. They normally wait around for another call or get picked up by their company to go do it again.

[jvalmer]

대리운전 in the boonies way out of the capital you can go like 30 minutes to the next town and only be charged 30k. Not bad for not having to drive drunk and still have your car at your place in the morning.

I believe the guy just waits for another guy to pick him up. The 'company' car is usually some Geo/Tico type of car with the company sticker plastered to the side.

[cdninkorea]

Some companies have combined this service with prostitution; you get a young woman to drive you home and give you oral sex too Truly an OInK (Only In Korea)... well, I could see this being in Japan too.

[jjajangmyun]

brilliant. thanks lads.

[b-class rambler]

It's funny, 대리운전 is one those things that even the expats who never seem to stop whining about anything Korean often think is a great idea.

Me, I tend to be fairly happy in Korea, but 대리운전 is something I've never been anywhere near as blown away impressed with as many others seem to have been and now wouldn't touch with a bargepole.

I mean, has anyone ever stopped to think if these guys are actually insured to drive your car home? Probably not, as if you were sober enough to think about that you wouldn't need their service in the first place.

But I'm pretty certain that very many 대리 are not insured to drive your car and that you could potentially be in quite a mess if an accident happened with one of them driving. I've only once ever used a 대리 driver and I was unimpressed because my car was a manual transmission and he looked like he'd never changed gear himself since his pre-licence driving lessons, if at all. On a 6km drive home we had a couple of very, very near misses and that got me thinking about the insurance issue.

I got a discount on the insurance by stipulating that only my wife and I could drive the car. So I wondered what kind of cover these guys could have that would override that. I was even more sceptical given how many situations I come across where back home it would be the norm to cover your arse with some kind of insurance, but where, in Korea, you get very strange looks if you ask about insurance and the norm is clearly to just assume it'll (probably) be all ok.

What I've heard is that many 대리 drivers who work full-time are "probably" covered by their employers insurance, if indeed their employer has the appropriate insurance in the first place. But a lot of them work part-time and, as such, are left to insure themselves. Obviously, this would take a fair chunk out of not enormously lucrative earnings, so many don't bother.
I've heard this from a couple of long time Korean friends of mine who've worked (or still work) in the taxi business here and who, I'm pretty confident, know what they're talking about. The same claims have also made on a couple of tv news stories I've seen, one of them last Christmas Day on SBS.

I guess you could say that having a guy, who might be uninsured, drive you home is a much lesser evil than driving home drunk and I wouldn't disagree. But for me, if I have a car to take home, then I'd rather just not drink that use 대리운전.

[optik404]

If they wrecked your car, they'd probably just get out and walk away. Leaving your drunk ass to get arrested by the po-po.

[Steelrails]

What the government should do is make these guys licensed, certified, an included as "insured" on anyone's policy in order to promote this kind of service.

[Chaucer]

[b-class rambler]

[Waygeek]