Korean Job Discussion Forums

Bibbitybop · Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Location: Seoul

If you are on a motorcycle and hit someone on the street, even if they are on the street illegally, like jaywalking, the motorcycle driver pays. This of course will apply to the sidewalks.

To hear someone paid a motorcycle driver who was on the sidewalk illegally AND hit a pedestrian is hilarious. Learn the laws and protect yourself.

ThingsComeAround · Joined: 07 Nov 2008

The deliveryman just wanted you to pay him off for losing the delivery. It may have been hard to keep walking, but he wouldn't want police involved either... no more money to be made at the cop shop.

myenglishisno · Joined: 08 Mar 2011 Location: Geumchon

ssuprnova · Joined: 17 Dec 2010 Location: Saigon

Weigookin74 · Joined: 26 Oct 2009

Weigookin74 · Joined: 26 Oct 2009

One time I rode my bicycle across the crosswalk and it was legal for me to do at an intersection. Bus driver zoomed up and almost hit me. I made eye contact with him, pointed at the crosswalk, and my green light signal to cross. Then I biked away. I turned around maybe 30 seconds later and he had his head out the window yelling at me. I screamed back in English to shut the f up and quit driving like an idiot! He muttered some more Korean and drove away. He couldn't understand what I was saying in English but he knew I was yelling back and my body language conveyed a shove it up your a attitude!

Bibbitybop · Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Location: Seoul

Boffo97 · Joined: 08 Dec 2010

Re: the guy hit by a scooter.

I can understand being afraid of the "The Korean is always right" syndrome, but that's just ridiculous.

You were on the sidewalk and he plowed into you.

You either should have screamed back, daring him to call the cops (and if he did, fake an injury), or just laughed in his face, and walked away.

yeti08 · Joined: 04 Nov 2009 Location: Anyang - Pyeongchon

Bibbitybop · Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Location: Seoul

myenglishisno · Joined: 08 Mar 2011 Location: Geumchon

Mr. Peabody · Joined: 24 Sep 2010 Location: here

deizio · Joined: 15 Jun 2007

Riding on the sidewalk in Gangnam was a 40k fine and 10 penalty points (I think 100 is the "limit" but could be wrong) in 2008. I generally make a point of not riding on the sidewalk but just cut a clear corner where traffic was backed up and subway construction was blocking the road, and got snapped by a government employee who had been handed a camera and told to catch some lawbreakers outside the office (Samsung 2-dong Office) on a slow morning.

At the time, I worked at Gangnam-gu office a couple of floors above the transport dept. and the bike was registered at Samsung 2-dong office, hence my latter knowledge of how things transpired and the general sense of irony that surrounded the whole incident.

When I went to the copshop they showed me the picture and gave me a bill to be paid at the bank. Fair cop.

Everything Bibbitybop says is true, although in 4 years of having the bike, 13,000 odd km and variously living and working in Gangnam, Yongsan and Jongno its the only time I've personally been cited or chastised for anything other than a minor 50/50 brush with a car (foreigner gets fingered, insurance picks up tab), and I've only been randomly stopped once. I ride thru Jongno and back every day at various times and am yet to personally encounter any patrols there. However, 3 words: License. Registration. Insurance.