Korean Job Discussion Forums

[blaseblasphemener]

So I took the car out of town today, down south from Daejeon. What a f@#$king hellish experience. I would not believe roads could be designed so poorly, in terms of signs, road markings, and just general obtuseness. It is however Korea. I think you could probably learn a lot about a country by it's road systems, and it's drivers. My conclusion about Korean planners is that there was little planning done until the last minute. Sound familiar?

[ajgeddes]

I have driven down in that area and never had any problems. I thought the roads were marked relatively well.

[contrarian]

I live in that general area and drive through it regulalry. I take the wrong road from time to time and even get a little lost. Heck that's a good chance to go exploring.

Go to some of the information booths at the rest stops on the freeways and ask for an English road map. It is a barely adequate thing but it covers the main points.

Also, remember that these roads serve cities towns and villages and are just expaned and paved from the routes that have been used in some cases, fro hundreds of years.

The very fact that most things are marked in English is interesting in itself.

[blaseblasphemener]

It's once you get off the IC that all hell breaks loose. It's the roads through rice paddy areas that are ridiculous. Also, on busy roads, with 2 or 3 lanes, lane changes are far too abrupt, often times with no sign warning of a disappearing lane ahead. Also, even in the city, signs will say an area is approaching, but then the turnoff to that area will have no sign. By the way, I've driven for 15 years in Canada, even had a job driving, but nothing could have prepared me for driving in Korea.

[smashjack]

I was forced to drive shirtless 15 km to the closest hospital after being run off the road on a motorcycle and slicing a big gash into my hand that required 8 stitches. That was awful, to say the least. One thing about driving in Korea... don't move to the side FOR ANYONE or you'll end up being the hurt one.

[Qinella]

It often seems like the roads here are designed and built by people who have never driven.

[indytrucks]

In all the countries I've driven in, I find the signage here to be quite good.

The drivers, on the other hand, are downright hopeless.

[shantaram]

I love driving in Korea.

[pest2]

Yeah there's no doubt that the roads here were built by a bunch of tards. Funny you'd bring up this topic, because I just got back from Near Daejeon -- Cheongju -- after a 4 hour drive.

My belief is that 1/2 of the problem is definitely the road and stoplight design. Someone else commented that the signage is good, and I'd agree-- thats not the big problem.

The problems seem to include stoplight timing patters that are always either too long or too short or that include turn arrows when absolutely un-necessary.

They rarely build turn lanes for right hand turns. So if you come to a red light and you want to go straight, some guy sitting behind has to wait for 20 minutes while the afforementioned red light turns green for you to go ahead just so he can turn right (on Jeju, I have seen fist fights about this one and I myself became engaged in a brawl over it as well).

When you're going straight and want to turn left into a parking lot on most roads, you have to go all the way to the next light that will allow U turns, do the U turn, and then come all the way back and turn right. All those road planning tards needed to do was put in a left hand turn lane.. but apparently they decided that was too customer oriented and logical for Korea, so they bagged the idea.

many many roads are just plain too narrow. So, situations often occur in which 2 cars going the opposite direction have to stop... sometimes they DONT get into an ajoshi-fight about who has to back all the way up and let the other person by. But sometimes such a fight ensues.

On the IC, if you miss your turn or get started going the wrong direction, you might have to drive up to 30 km before you can get to a toll station, pay the XXwon you just lost for you mistake, get another ticket, and go back the way you should have gone in the first place. The planning tards didnt build any inter-highway exits. All they would have to do would be to build an exit solely for the purpose of turning around and going the other way, but no.

Im tired of writing, but there are alot more.

I had a friend the first year I was here who was a professor of civil engineering and infrastructural planning from University of Arizona. His specialty was designing roads and such... A University in Suwon paid him big bucks to come to Korean and teach for 6 months. He was teaching grad school students. He told me he really shouldnt have allowed 80% of his class to pass because they were such poor students... BUT the school was being bribed by the parents, and the school threatened not to pay him, so ...

[PeterDragon]

I've only ever done it on a motorcycle. The fact that the signs are in English is something I find pretty nice. Driving out here in Anseong is cool. The drivers are just as agressive, but you're not sharing the road with nearly as many people, and there's a lot of open road.

Driving in Seoul, on the other hand, feels less like driving, and more like having a weird nightmare about driving. It reminds me of the recurring adolescent-anxiety-fueled bad dreams I had as a teen while I was taking driver's ed, leading up to the test.

Oddly, I think Anseong might actually be more dangerous than Seoul. There's fewer drivers, but they're all moving much faster. And the rural farm roads don'tt have one way markers, are't big enough for two cars, consist of nothing but blind curves, and many of the peope who use them are doing 40-50 kph.

My co-teacher shortcuts accross irrigation service corridors intended for tractors when she drives me to work.

[OiGirl]

I'm just curious...how much experience did you have driving and in what kind of regions before driving in Korea?

[I-am-me]

Try driving in Colombia!!!

[xeno439]

Wholeheartedly agree with OP. Whoever the hell planned the highways needs to be shot. What a clear lack of foresight on their part.

[pest2]

[blynch]