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noelinkorea
Joined: 09 Apr 2003
Location: Shinchon, Seoul
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 Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 10:37 pm Post subject: Taxi crushes baby pram and flees |
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This happened last week, and got me feeling a bit depressed about drivers and social responsibility.
I live in Itaewon, and was walking up a steep hill with my flatmate to my house with some groceries. The road is poorly kept and there is a corner where the road turns 90 degrees and becomes extra steep. It was dark, but up ahead was a woman (with a standing child and a pram) screeeeeeaming at a taxi driver who'd come round the corner. The pram (stroller for you N. Americans) was jammed between the taxi and a car stupidly parked right at the corner.
Somehow, the pram was stuck right against the back wheel of the taxi, with a baby still in the seat. My flatmate and I rushed forward, as the woman was telling the old man driver to back up so she could get the baby out...but he kept going forward slowly....cruuuunch goes the front of the pram. The woman couldn't reach round, so my quick-thinking flatmate blasted the driver (who still continued forward trying to get past, baby screaming all the while) and ran round the other side and pulled the baby out - her legs were against the back car wheel, and the pram wheel was already crushed! I dumped the groceries and pulled the toddler daughter away from the car and got the driver's number plate. The distressed mother used my phone to call the police. Then the driver took off, crushing more of the pram as he left, right down the hill! I was really annoyed (hhhmmm...no expletives here...).
We took everyone home, nearby, and were later called by the police to go down to the cop station...only when we eventually got there and I gave them the car plate details, they didn't even know who we were, nor who'd called me!! Very odd, and a stressful night...The mother wasn't there, and the (formerly asleep officer) didn't know about the accident - even when he recalled the number that'd called me (a cellphone number)...just confusing. [And yep - we both learned Korean, at Yonsei]
It's like drivers don't have any responsibility and the police are clueless!! I was especially frustrated because I suspect that the driver would've just zoomed off all the same even if he'd hurt or killed the infant...
I have similar experiences with police too here in Korea - once, a man beating a woman on the street was eventually given a talking to by the police we'd called...that is, after they'd told some other person off for parking badly!!
Hhmmm...this has turned into a ravel, but you can probably see my frustration... |
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Hanson
Joined: 20 Oct 2004
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| Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 2:56 am Post subject: |
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That's unbelievable, but strangely, it doesn't surprise me. I probably would've tried to dent his taxi somehow (maybe that would've made the moron stop and get out...).
You reacted well and I'm sure the mother was thankful for your help. |
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billybrobby
Joined: 09 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 3:46 am Post subject: |
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Not to be flippant but as I was reading this I was wondering what the hell a 'pram' is. so I looked it up and got...
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Chiefly New England. A small dinghy having a flat, snub-nosed bow.
A flatbottom boat used chiefly in the Baltic Sea as a barge. |
...and was more confused until I saw the second definition...
...and then all was made clear |
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Cheonmunka
Joined: 04 Jun 2004
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| Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 3:52 am Post subject: |
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There are some psychological issues with many people in this country.
My kids are precious to me. If I lost my son I would be hard pressed not to kill myself.
I get the feeling among even my (Korean) friends that if they lose one of their children life for them would easily continue. I get the feeling that without one child or two life might even become easier for them.
I've heard some recent stories and the parent's reaction was exactly as above. A kind of a "Oh well, life goes on."
And, do you see also that there are so many adoptions out to the west. And, missing children! So many missing children who never get found?
It's actually not difficult for children to wander away and go missing but for those children to never get found again, must be because of negligence and stupidity, and a 'well, too bad' attitude.
You helped save a baby's life and no one gives a damn.
In my country you'd be a hero.
Maybe this psychological dilemna is due to that internicene war, I don't know.
Last edited by Cheonmunka on Sat Apr 22, 2006 4:12 am; edited 2 times in total |
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noelinkorea
Joined: 09 Apr 2003
Location: Shinchon, Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 4:08 am Post subject: hehe |
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...that's why I put the definition afterwards:
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The pram (stroller for you N. Americans) was jammed between the taxi and a car stupidly parked right at the corner.
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I thought there would be a translation problem... |
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billybrobby
Joined: 09 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 4:25 am Post subject: Re: hehe |
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| noelinkorea wrote: |
...that's why I put the definition afterwards:
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The pram (stroller for you N. Americans) was jammed between the taxi and a car stupidly parked right at the corner.
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I thought there would be a translation problem... |
oh. oops. uh, nevermind... but hey, it sure woulda been funny if the baby was in a flatbottom boat used chiefly in the Baltic Sea as a barge, wouldn't it? |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 4:54 am Post subject: |
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| Cheonmunka wrote: |
There are some psychological issues with many people in this country.
My kids are precious to me. If I lost my son I would be hard pressed not to kill myself.
I get the feeling among even my (Korean) friends that if they lose one of their children life for them would easily continue. I get the feeling that without one child or two life might even become easier for them.
I've heard some recent stories and the parent's reaction was exactly as above. A kind of a "Oh well, life goes on."
And, do you see also that there are so many adoptions out to the west. And, missing children! So many missing children who never get found?
It's actually not difficult for children to wander away and go missing but for those children to never get found again, must be because of negligence and stupidity, and a 'well, too bad' attitude.
You helped save a baby's life and no one gives a damn.
In my country you'd be a hero.
Maybe this psychological dilemna is due to that internicene war, I don't know. |
One has to wonder how you extrapolate this, from a single isolated incident.  |
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Cheonmunka
Joined: 04 Jun 2004
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| Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 3:11 pm Post subject: |
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Not in the least a single incident.
My thoughts have built up over the years.
I know you don't care for my thoughts, or at least in the disorder they are given out.
Go a little further. It's the 'Progress at any Price' and mechanisation that makes these things happen. For why would it be more important, in the eyes of all the others including the police, for a taxi driver or any other driver to have more advantage about getting his/her vehicle somewhere than it is for the mother to have a safe journey.
Just yesterday taking my kids across a pedestrian crossing a car wouldn't stop for us. Admittedly we were on our side of the median centerline. But only by one meter. I could have kicked that car. That's how close. And it wasn't slowing.
So, where does this lead us. You ask how I extrapoliate... or something... not from a single incident. Not in the least.
It's not all bad. Historically children belong to aunts and uncles as much as parents. But I'll tell you straight, there are many parents who don't see their children except when they visit the children's grandparents' house on ChuSok and Solnal.
That's my empirical evidence about parents concerning less for their own children. Taken as a group, they seem similar as much as our grandparents in the early 1900s... life was tough, miscarriages were plenty and thru wars etc life was cheap. Now there's a new ante - the importance of money. Money here is more important than civil liberty.
More important that parents work far away from their children so in the end they can give their children a mortgage free home.
But several times I have seen parents get their apartment but still leave their children with grandparents. Why's that? I ask a few neighbors. "They don't want to have the burden of raising children."
Humph.
Hey, the taxi driver's just doing his job trying to earn money to feed his own family and well the streets are blocked with cars and objects, let him be. Poor man.
Is that similar to the response you got from the police station?
Now, where's the mother. Slunk off into the darkness.
Without a victim there's no more to this story. Looks like the civic leaders, the mothers, the driver have all done their jobs to sweep the problem under the carpet and the status quo remains.
................ |
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chiaa
Joined: 23 Aug 2003
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| Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Cheonmunka wrote: |
There are some psychological issues with many people in this country.
My kids are precious to me. If I lost my son I would be hard pressed not to kill myself.
I get the feeling among even my (Korean) friends that if they lose one of their children life for them would easily continue. I get the feeling that without one child or two life might even become easier for them.
I've heard some recent stories and the parent's reaction was exactly as above. A kind of a "Oh well, life goes on."
And, do you see also that there are so many adoptions out to the west. And, missing children! So many missing children who never get found?
It's actually not difficult for children to wander away and go missing but for those children to never get found again, must be because of negligence and stupidity, and a 'well, too bad' attitude.
You helped save a baby's life and no one gives a damn.
In my country you'd be a hero.
Maybe this psychological dilemna is due to that internicene war, I don't know. |
You are a fucking idiot. Seriously you are. Go back to your country where all the heroes are. |
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chiaa
Joined: 23 Aug 2003
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| Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 7:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Cheonmunka wrote: |
Not in the least a single incident.
My thoughts have built up over the years.
I know you don't care for my thoughts, or at least in the disorder they are given out.
Go a little further. It's the 'Progress at any Price' and mechanisation that makes these things happen. For why would it be more important, in the eyes of all the others including the police, for a taxi driver or any other driver to have more advantage about getting his/her vehicle somewhere than it is for the mother to have a safe journey.
Just yesterday taking my kids across a pedestrian crossing a car wouldn't stop for us. Admittedly we were on our side of the median centerline. But only by one meter. I could have kicked that car. That's how close. And it wasn't slowing.
So, where does this lead us. You ask how I extrapoliate... or something... not from a single incident. Not in the least.
It's not all bad. Historically children belong to aunts and uncles as much as parents. But I'll tell you straight, there are many parents who don't see their children except when they visit the children's grandparents' house on ChuSok and Solnal.
That's my empirical evidence about parents concerning less for their own children. Taken as a group, they seem similar as much as our grandparents in the early 1900s... life was tough, miscarriages were plenty and thru wars etc life was cheap. Now there's a new ante - the importance of money. Money here is more important than civil liberty.
More important that parents work far away from their children so in the end they can give their children a mortgage free home.
But several times I have seen parents get their apartment but still leave their children with grandparents. Why's that? I ask a few neighbors. "They don't want to have the burden of raising children."
Humph.
Hey, the taxi driver's just doing his job trying to earn money to feed his own family and well the streets are blocked with cars and objects, let him be. Poor man.
Is that similar to the response you got from the police station?
Now, where's the mother. Slunk off into the darkness.
Without a victim there's no more to this story. Looks like the civic leaders, the mothers, the driver have all done their jobs to sweep the problem under the carpet and the status quo remains.
................ |
1. 75% of the countries in this world are like that with pedestrians. Just because they don't give a shit about your kid, does not mean that they don't care about their child. They can turn around and say you don't care about your children because you don't have a car and walk around on these dangerous roads.
2. Have you have had to have a job as a Korean? Do you know how difficult it is to get a decent job as a Korean? Have any idea what the salary is for someone with a Masters? A B.A.? Do you know that if you do not live (ie afford to live) in a good neighborhood there are not good schools? Do you know that where the good schools are, housing is expensive? Do you know in each area there are say three highschools. Each one is publically ranked and the better the school the better university you get into. What do you think is one the main ways it is decided which highschool each child goes to? I'll tell you, it's by how long you have lived in the area. If the kid moves he get tossed at the bottom of the pile for picking which school to go to.
Edit: The same thing goes for picking out a middle school.... |
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Barking Mad Lord Snapcase
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
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| Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 8:43 am Post subject: |
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| chiaa wrote: |
| Cheonmunka wrote: |
Not in the least a single incident.
My thoughts have built up over the years.
I know you don't care for my thoughts, or at least in the disorder they are given out.
Go a little further. It's the 'Progress at any Price' and mechanisation that makes these things happen. For why would it be more important, in the eyes of all the others including the police, for a taxi driver or any other driver to have more advantage about getting his/her vehicle somewhere than it is for the mother to have a safe journey.
Just yesterday taking my kids across a pedestrian crossing a car wouldn't stop for us. Admittedly we were on our side of the median centerline. But only by one meter. I could have kicked that car. That's how close. And it wasn't slowing.
So, where does this lead us. You ask how I extrapoliate... or something... not from a single incident. Not in the least.
It's not all bad. Historically children belong to aunts and uncles as much as parents. But I'll tell you straight, there are many parents who don't see their children except when they visit the children's grandparents' house on ChuSok and Solnal.
That's my empirical evidence about parents concerning less for their own children. Taken as a group, they seem similar as much as our grandparents in the early 1900s... life was tough, miscarriages were plenty and thru wars etc life was cheap. Now there's a new ante - the importance of money. Money here is more important than civil liberty.
More important that parents work far away from their children so in the end they can give their children a mortgage free home.
But several times I have seen parents get their apartment but still leave their children with grandparents. Why's that? I ask a few neighbors. "They don't want to have the burden of raising children."
Humph.
Hey, the taxi driver's just doing his job trying to earn money to feed his own family and well the streets are blocked with cars and objects, let him be. Poor man.
Is that similar to the response you got from the police station?
Now, where's the mother. Slunk off into the darkness.
Without a victim there's no more to this story. Looks like the civic leaders, the mothers, the driver have all done their jobs to sweep the problem under the carpet and the status quo remains.
................ |
1. 75% of the countries in this world are like that with pedestrians. Just because they don't give a *beep* about your kid, does not mean that they don't care about their child. They can turn around and say you don't care about your children because you don't have a car and walk around on these dangerous roads.
2. Have you have had to have a job as a Korean? Do you know how difficult it is to get a decent job as a Korean? Have any idea what the salary is for someone with a Masters? A B.A.? Do you know that if you do not live (ie afford to live) in a good neighborhood there are not good schools? Do you know that where the good schools are, housing is expensive? Do you know in each area there are say three highschools. Each one is publically ranked and the better the school the better university you get into. What do you think is one the main ways it is decided which highschool each child goes to? I'll tell you, it's by how long you have lived in the area. If the kid moves he get tossed at the bottom of the pile for picking which school to go to.
Edit: The same thing goes for picking out a middle school.... |
What you have said here - though perhaps factual and informative - will do nothing to let this particular taxi driver off the hook. Yes, I know that wasn't the sole intention (I hope); and I am aware that the incident described in the OP may be an isolated incident. However, this line got me thinking:
| Quote: |
| 75% of the countries in this world are like that with pedestrians. Just because they don't give a *beep* about your kid, does not mean that they don't care about their child. |
Maybe I'm just being a plain ol' thicko, but somehow I get the feeling that the above quote contradicts the reassurance that the taxi/pram incident was an isolated case. If you are including South Korea in that 75%, then you are essentially asking expats to expect more of the same. And responses in the manner of the OP? Hey, you implied it - expect more of the same ... |
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Cheonmunka
Joined: 04 Jun 2004
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| Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for this personal insult:
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You are a *beep* idiot. Seriously you are. Go back to your country where all the heroes are.
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Would I also be an idiot to post the link to where I get all my English reading needs online as e-books?
...........................
Last edited by Cheonmunka on Sun Apr 23, 2006 2:45 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Cheonmunka
Joined: 04 Jun 2004
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| Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 2:32 pm Post subject: |
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You said:
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| Each one is publically ranked and the better the school the better university you get into. |
But this is not always true. Did you know that in the past high school teachers received certain benefits to strongly suggest, as councillors, that students go to certain universities. So, they got/get kickbacks. Just another wee tidbit of information, not from my head, but an experience from within my family.
Look, I'm explaining my own thoughts on this board. So, where is your reasoning as to why taxi drivers can be completely off the hook after crushing a baby pram with a baby in it.
It's like out of a horror movie. It's not excusable behavior, yet it is excused. So, why is that? That's the question I ask. |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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Not as bad as the story in the OP, but I was on an inter-city bus that had just left Seoul Station in rush hour traffic.
We were on an overpass (I.E. no shoulder, no sidewalk, no way to exit) when there was a fender-bender and a truck's mirrors got banged up with our bus mirrors, breaking them both off.
Both drivers got out and started yelling at each other and then proceeded to have an all-out knockdown brawl in the middle of rushhour traffic on the bridge (I wasn't too shocked, since I had seen this sort of behaviour from drivers before).
I guess our driver got the worst of it because he ran off, weaving in and out of cars and down off the overpass.
We- the full busload of passengers- just kind of looked at each other in disbelief- what do we do now?
The bus was a common one and came a few times an hour so we all had to stand on the side of the overpass next to the bus, waiting for the next one. It came and it was full (no standing alowwed, even to just ferry some of us off the overpass), but the driver promised to call in and get a new bus.
Next one came full, and the next.
Somebody called the police to try to get some help (remember there was a stopped bus blocking one of the lanes- NOBODY was happy).
We were stranded on that overpass for over an hour before a bus came to whisk us away, and the police never did show up. 
I always wondered WTF the driver was doing, running away- how could that make his situation any less worse than abandoning his bus in traffic? Did they have escaped cons working as drivers or something?
Had he been drinking and wanted to sober up somewhere before returning to face the music?
I guess I'll never know... |
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chiaa
Joined: 23 Aug 2003
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| Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Barking Mad Lord Snapcase wrote: |
| chiaa wrote: |
| Cheonmunka wrote: |
Not in the least a single incident.
My thoughts have built up over the years.
I know you don't care for my thoughts, or at least in the disorder they are given out.
Go a little further. It's the 'Progress at any Price' and mechanisation that makes these things happen. For why would it be more important, in the eyes of all the others including the police, for a taxi driver or any other driver to have more advantage about getting his/her vehicle somewhere than it is for the mother to have a safe journey.
Just yesterday taking my kids across a pedestrian crossing a car wouldn't stop for us. Admittedly we were on our side of the median centerline. But only by one meter. I could have kicked that car. That's how close. And it wasn't slowing.
So, where does this lead us. You ask how I extrapoliate... or something... not from a single incident. Not in the least.
It's not all bad. Historically children belong to aunts and uncles as much as parents. But I'll tell you straight, there are many parents who don't see their children except when they visit the children's grandparents' house on ChuSok and Solnal.
That's my empirical evidence about parents concerning less for their own children. Taken as a group, they seem similar as much as our grandparents in the early 1900s... life was tough, miscarriages were plenty and thru wars etc life was cheap. Now there's a new ante - the importance of money. Money here is more important than civil liberty.
More important that parents work far away from their children so in the end they can give their children a mortgage free home.
But several times I have seen parents get their apartment but still leave their children with grandparents. Why's that? I ask a few neighbors. "They don't want to have the burden of raising children."
Humph.
Hey, the taxi driver's just doing his job trying to earn money to feed his own family and well the streets are blocked with cars and objects, let him be. Poor man.
Is that similar to the response you got from the police station?
Now, where's the mother. Slunk off into the darkness.
Without a victim there's no more to this story. Looks like the civic leaders, the mothers, the driver have all done their jobs to sweep the problem under the carpet and the status quo remains.
................ |
1. 75% of the countries in this world are like that with pedestrians. Just because they don't give a *beep* about your kid, does not mean that they don't care about their child. They can turn around and say you don't care about your children because you don't have a car and walk around on these dangerous roads.
2. Have you have had to have a job as a Korean? Do you know how difficult it is to get a decent job as a Korean? Have any idea what the salary is for someone with a Masters? A B.A.? Do you know that if you do not live (ie afford to live) in a good neighborhood there are not good schools? Do you know that where the good schools are, housing is expensive? Do you know in each area there are say three highschools. Each one is publically ranked and the better the school the better university you get into. What do you think is one the main ways it is decided which highschool each child goes to? I'll tell you, it's by how long you have lived in the area. If the kid moves he get tossed at the bottom of the pile for picking which school to go to.
Edit: The same thing goes for picking out a middle school.... |
What you have said here - though perhaps factual and informative - will do nothing to let this particular taxi driver off the hook. Yes, I know that wasn't the sole intention (I hope); and I am aware that the incident described in the OP may be an isolated incident. However, this line got me thinking:
| Quote: |
| 75% of the countries in this world are like that with pedestrians. Just because they don't give a *beep* about your kid, does not mean that they don't care about their child. |
Maybe I'm just being a plain ol' thicko, but somehow I get the feeling that the above quote contradicts the reassurance that the taxi/pram incident was an isolated case. If you are including South Korea in that 75%, then you are essentially asking expats to expect more of the same. And responses in the manner of the OP? Hey, you implied it - expect more of the same ... |
I am not trying to defend the taxi driver at all; de deserves an ass beating. But to come to a conclusion that Korean's do not care about their children based on this incident (how can one do that here) as well as the chemonkoka's "vast" experience is just plain silly. It is quite clear that chemonakanlack knows nothing about Korea. |
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