Korean Job Discussion Forums

djmarcus · Joined: 12 Jan 2006 Location: Seoul

Getting a license can be painless. But the real pain starts when 1) buying a used car 2) spending money on fixing a used car 3) making sure that when you have an accident, your not royally screwed because the other driver is an a-hole waiting to scrap every cent from your insurance company, which makes your rating go lower 4) Just plain driving..

1) I bought a car about 10 years old at 1.5mil, but had to pay 700 bucks for insurance for the year. Korea unfortunately does not look at your past driving experience. So your status starts at level zero, which is understandable because Korea seems to have their own set of road rules..which brings me to..

2) Don't take what the dealers sell you at face value. Numbers are and can be reset. That 80K car might actually have hit over 100k. Check as much as you can under the hood.

3) Getting to an accident is not like it is in the states, not sure where your from. After an accident, you call the insurance company. Make sure you can communicate with them in English. Not all of the have interpreters. Make sure if they do have interpreters, that they work at night. Take pictures of everything. The car, the other driver, the other car. Once you leave that spot, stories tend to blow way out there and you could be left having to pay for something that didn't even exist, such a broken non-existing notebook. This happened to my friend so take my word for it.

4) Driving is seriously f'ed up. You gotta watch out for taxis. They will appear in front of you out of know where. No body gives a rats ass about letting you into their lane. They will honk like they need to breathe. Buses are even worse, I guess they have right of way no matter what.

If you really are in dire need of car, I guess it can be worth it. But if you're looking for a joy ride on the weekends, I wish you luck in getting the right car at the right price.

oh did I mention parking issues? If you don't have a set spot, you really don't want to deal with sharing space with another car. If driving doesn't piss you off, parking surely will..

Good luck..

noobteacher · Joined: 27 Nov 2009

Excellent post djmarcus. I would also add that if you are not already an experienced driver, you should seriously reconsider driving here in Korea. I have 10+ years experience driving in the states and it still took me awhile to get used to the psychotic and just plain idiotic drivers. Korean drivers have no sense of (or care about) anything on the road but themselves and their own car so all I have to say is watch out!!

toonchoon · Joined: 06 Feb 2009 Location: Gangnam

Took the poorly written computerized test in 2008 and all my friends and I passed with a 68% or something like that. Got my Korean license valid for 10 years. Pure awesomeness.

Go to the Nowon DMV. They don't fail foreigners.

toonchoon · Joined: 06 Feb 2009 Location: Gangnam

noky · Joined: 14 Jul 2010 Location: Yeongcheon

jamesy · Joined: 24 Nov 2005 Location: incheon, korea

The whole process wasn't too bad for me as I had a lot of help from my wife. If you don't speak Korean or don't have a bit of help from a Korean speaker, it could be quite difficult.

The actual tests were no problem. I did all of them in Incheon and they were really easy. The English written test was a little confusing because of some poor translations, but if you used a bit of common sense you could figure out what they were on about. The driving tests were also pretty straightforward. I hadn't driven before coming to Korea, and I breezed through them. If you have some experience of driving, they'll be no problem at all.