Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ticktocktocktick]

I just PMed this to a guy, but this could be useful to everyone, so enjoy!

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You will have to learn some rudimentry Korean to learn to drive. If you can't read, learn now, and practice. Some Korean road signs are only in Korean, particularly those written onto the road surface. After that, get a Korean to sit down with you, and go through the various car part vocab, and vocab for things you can do with a car (mirror, reverse, left right etc...)

Now you're ready. They can teach either auto or manual. I did manual. They'll teach you to drive a Kia Bongo truck or similar, not a regular car if you take this option.

If you do automatic, it's about $150 cheaper, and you'll learn in a regular car. The drawback is you'll only be able to drive an automatic car, no motorbikes, no trucks etc.

How it works:

Sign up to a driving hagwon (you'll need a Korean for this!). At the same time, they'll give you an eye test.

Go to the DMV/DVLA type place and buy a copy of the Korean highway code. Study it. I spent about 5 hours studying it.

Take a written test at the local DMV/DVLA. If you read the book, and remember the oddy-soddy bits of info, you'll be fine. The test is available in English.

Take your test result back to the hagwon. You can now start. Firstly, you'll watch a safety video for about an hour, entirely in Korean. It's mandatory. It's all stuff any halfwit could figure out, even in a foreign language. I think I played sudoku on my phone for an hour.

Next, you'll have to do 2 or 3 hours on a computer simulator, a bit like the racing games you get at arcades.

Now you're ready for an actual vehicle. The hagwon will have an obstacle course, which you have to master. I'm told that the obstacle course is the same at every hagwon. You have to complete 15-20 hrs of this before you can take the next test. For the first 8 hrs or so, you'll have an instructor with you. When you're reasonable on your own, you'll be left to practice by yourself. The course and the vehicles are fitted with sensors to see how well you do on this. There's a display in the car that can make some truly annoying noises. Every time you make a mistake, you lose 5 points. You start with 100, and 80 is the pass mark for manual, 70 for automatic. If you fail this, you have to do another 5 hrs of lessons before you can try again. They don't charge extra for these extra hours, you should just pay one set price upfront when you sign up (I paid approx w800,000).

When you pass the obstacle course test, you'll then go out on the road with an instructor. You'll drive a set course on the road that'll last about 10 mins. You have to complete 15 hrs of this road practice before you can take the road test.

When you pass the road test, it takes a few days to get the licence. Each test you take is around w40,000.


Any more questions, let me know.

[Underwaterbob]

With a process this complicated, you'd think they'd be better at it.

[seoulsucker]

[toadkillerdog]

Things must have changed alot. I just drove to the DL test center, told them I needed a DL, took a few simple tests, paid my 15,000won, hung around outside smoking for 15 minutes or so, picked up my DL and drove home (legally).