Korean Job Discussion Forums

[scarneck]

I'm wondering how many on this board own/operate a car while here in Korea.

I drive from Seoul to Seongnam area to work every day; strange but I actually look forward to the challenge. It's not a long drive usually, but it can become exciting none the less. I've learned to let some things slide and am relieved that most people don't own handguns.

I know that the signs and lights etc are just 'suggestions'...I'm quickly learning that you have to drive like 'they' do if you want to fit in..

I notice that the folks that own the larger expensive cars are bullies. They'll try to squeeze you out of your lane, even if they drive on the shoulders.

A friendly 'hand gesture' forgives all transgressions...

The traffic on the highway already does not have the right of way if a car wants to merge in...

Motorcycles are immune to traffic laws..

KNP are impotent

Kids and seatbelts do not mix...( I saw yesterday, a woman driving a 'Rexton' she had an INFANT in her lap, holding it with one arm, plugging a bottle in it's mouth while trying to manipulate the wheel IN RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC...she was driving mind you and her husband (MAYBE) was in the passenger seat picking his nose)...

Breaking traffic laws are a victimless crime (most of the time) so why obey the law?

There are no such things as a 'near miss', or 'you almost hit me!' It's either you did or you didn't....

Everyone wants to be first at the light...

You can't win a fight with a bus...they are juggernauts...unstoppable..

I have many more...and I look on it as a bit of fun...I don't venture out to parts that I'm not familiar with because the highway system is unforgiving as I found out. I am thankful that this time in Korea I can actually own and drive my own car....


Anyone else with stories?

[Toby]

Your car is your sanctuary and no-one can interfere with the space immeadiately around it. Almost like the indestructable feeling you have when in bumper cars.

That's how Koreans drive.

[Wangja]

No problems in nearly 6 years: the driving standard is very high and well disciplined.

Try Kuwait, Athens, Cairo or worst of all, Paris.

[ajuma]

The best thing about driving an old car is that the newer, bigger ones give way because they don't want a scratch on their "babies". Buses/cement trucks and bongos win!

[whereisjay]

its like everythign in this country from prostitution to eating dog meat, there is laws, but non of them are ever inforced...

red lights??? mabee every one in korea is colour blind.

speed limit signs??? i think they are for the motor bikes on the pavements.

pedestrian crossings??? for parking on when in a hurry?

Yellow lines??? dont they mean park here?

bus lanes??? i always take the one from seoul to suwon on a saturday and sunday and havent got a ticket yet, done this well over one or two hundred times, i think they are just for anyone who thinks they are in a bus

indicators??? they are just colourful accessories for you car with no real practical use

after driving here for over two years in both a small car and a big car i would never drive in a small car again, ok easier to park but who cares, park anywhere you want, one day i actually got towed from near my house, and the whole towing fee was 28 000 won for everything, actually less than what a ticket would be.

another funny thing that has actually happened twice to me, i was driving home from my mother in laws and i was doing the korean thing at a "T" intersection or a sam-go-li(��Ÿ�) anyway i did a right turn and then did a U turn (in stead of waiting for five minutes for the sutpid korean lights to change and do a left turn) so i was driving down the road and some cop cars started chasing me, i pulled over and then they cop, in his 40's put his hand in to the window of the car and asked me to blow in to his semi clenched fist, well i pretended not to understand him and proceded to blow in to my own partly clenched fist and put it out the window at him, imitating and pretending not to understand him, well after doing this about 10 times i asked him what he was doing and if i had done anything wrong, he was like no you havent, so what are we doing??????

well eventually he told me he thought i was drunk and doing a u turn to avoid a check point which was just down the road, (which i never saw) i just laughed, never blew in to his fist and then drove off totally amazed at how technologically advanced cops are here, whoudl the clenched fist and smell test stand up in court for a breath test result????

well my best advice for any one is to only speak english, unless in an accident in which case you wanna get all the information you can cause you can get money!!!!!

DRIVE AS THEY DO AND YOU CAN HAVE A HEAP OF FUN......

I think of it as being just like racing cars in one big fun park...

[scarneck]

[Swiss James]

[whereisjay]

[Toby]

[captain kirk]

I always try to drive so that if something unexpected happens, somebody lunges out of a little street even though they can't see what's around the corner, I'll be able to stop. Driving defensively, then.
Taxis like to play games.
Trucks too.
Some big trucks, at night, barrel down the city streets like the angel of death. Right through red lights at intersections. No horn warning because it's night.
Some taxi drivers are drunk, believe it or not. Man it made me mad when I pulled up beside a cabbie who was playing games and smelled soju on his breath.
Please be careful, which is up to you. Not the other guy.

[Wangja]

[captain kirk]

Yes, that's true. Cars will be stopped at a light and when it goes from red to yellow no-one moves. They wait until it goes green. Everybody. But, at the same time, they'll be a number of cars alongside in the opposing lane, which is clear, going for a left hand turn.
I think they don't budge on the yellow because they don't want to look to each other, everybody waiting at the light, like anyone personally is out of line, not law-abiding. A kind of bowing to the communal honour of appearances.
But once things get moving it's everyone for themselves

[coolsage]

Koreans tend to drive the way that Koreans tend to walk, which is to say, without regard to anything in their path. Pedestrians routinely bump and crash into each other. Cars more than six months old exhibit bumps and creases from near-misses. I've come to believe that the vast majority of Korean society will never change; this place will always remain the home of the obtuse.

[captain kirk]

On the lighter side, unlike Hooters, which is the home of the boobs

[Hollywoodaction]