Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Real Reality]

Korea Ranks Among Worst in Traffic Fatality Rate
Chosun Ilbo (June 4, 2008)
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200806/200806040024.html

[cangel]

My students come from all areas of Korea and they all say that Jeonju has the worst drivers. I have no reason to doubt them based on what I�ve seen. It is an everyday occurrence to see city busses blow through a red light along with taxis and a fair portion of regular drivers. I have seen drivers drive on sidewalks because they didn�t want to wait at a red light. I ride a motorcycle here and have been cut off so many times I can�t even count. Truly despicable driving behaviors but so long as the authorities are turning a blind eye, complacency will endure.

[Adventurer]

Cangel, as Joinme would say this is Korean culture. People should accept that cars drive on sidewalks, because that's the culture. Heck, if some people from the Cosa Nostra blow up somebody in Sicilia, that's okay, too, because it is part of Italian culture. And what's the Korean newspaper's problem? How dare they publish something that embarasses the nation!

I am being sarcastic, of course.... Sometimes, I feel like I am in an episode of Father Knows Best or the Brady Bunch...

[jeffkim1972]

The ironic thing is that the traffic light system is designed so that no decisions have to be made. You should just follow the lights and don't have to be mindful of any other cars, especially at intersections, but this system leads to rogue drivers and massive amounts of idle cars waiting at intersections. It's really a stupid system that Koreans don't notice. Koreans don't even know how to read a map or can't remember the number of a main road they've been driving to work for 10 years anyhow, but that's another story.

-Can't make a left turn on a green (need the left turn signal).
-At an intersection (the lights are round robin). Three streets wait, only one can pass.
-Each side gets about 1 minute, so for a simple intersection, you can be waiting up to 3 minutes.

I've been driving everyday since i've been in Korea (over two years).

If you notice Seoul traffic,

-there are some major streets that are extremely congested, while others are empty.
1. Koreans uses navigators that all tell them to drive ONE way, so these navigators bottleneck traffic.
2. Koreans don't know how to read maps so they don't use an alternative.
3. Koreans just accept it.
-there are many large main streets where you can't make a left or right turn for miles and miles.
-there are really not many streets to drive on because of those little alley streets. So city blocks are essentially huge, really 3-4 manhatten blocks.
-Every intersection you'll notice 3 of the streets packed with waiting cars.
-Not all the lights are synchronized, so you keep on stopping at the next light or during a congested time, there's no room to advance to you miss out on your "green" time.

On the highways:
-Not many exits to begin with.
-in the US, every highway exit allows you to make a u-turn at the exit by driving in a couple of circles, getting on and off the exits.
-Here, it's impossible, you must keep going on that road for who knows how long, maybe 10 km or even more before you can go correct your mistake at times.

And of course the principal reason, no street names or proper addresses. People driving around in circles looking for where they must go.

[esetters21]

Koreans as a society have only been driving cars for 20-30 years in mass. Hell, that is about as long as I have been driving . I have a car and drive here btw. I remember when I took the written test a couple years ago to get my license; I finished it within 10 minutes with a 90% pass rate without studying anything while all of the other people taking the same test seemed to be struggling through it (based on the people that I saw in the room when I first came in and were still taking the test when I left).

As far as being good drivers here goes; they are less than skilled with a car IMO (still very 3rd world).

As a city planning major with a minor in transportation planning...well we won't even go into the problems they have as far is that is concerned.

[Pyongshin Sangja]

Wow. Good analysis. Tell me more.

[aka Dave]

I've become very sensitive to this because one of my students was run over, I know a Korean hagwan teacher who was run over by a drunk driver who put her in his trunk and she died as a result of the delay from receiving treatment (these incidents were in Ochang).

Also, walking home from a hagwon in Kyong-gi do I saw a man (pedestrian) dead on the ground hit by a bus.

I've been living in Cheong-ju for 5 months and I've already personally witnessed two accidents, one a minor one involving a scooter, the other a pedestrian lying in the middle of the street.

My neighborhood is awful in the absence of sidewalks. Particularly is one steep street I call "death hill".

It's right next to a school, it's incline is quite steep, it has no sidwalks, and there's always cars parked on both sides of the street. As a result, two cars have trouble passing each other so they have to wait - and you can imagine if there's not room for 2 cars, there's no space for pedestrians.

Yet this street sees tons of pedestrian traffic, both kids and adults. And there are tons of taxis zipping along it. I fully expect to see blood on that pavement before I live here.

I just hope it's not mine.

[deadman]

[bassexpander]

I remember my Korean neighbor's parents were killed in a crash with a bus a few years back. She said the bus driver hit them, and people on the scene reported that he purposely backed and rolled back over them to make sure they were dead. Her theory was that he did it because then he wouldn't be liable for their hospital bills.

That's the story she told me, anyway.

[Tarkaan]

Today I went to shower on post, and I was walking down the street back to the terminus. Some kid was trying to cross at a crosswalk and people wouldn't stop for him. He would start to cross, then have to run back.

So I walked out into traffic. The dude tried to go around me, but I moved and stepped in front of his vehicle. "YOU. STOP." Then to the kid: "YOU. GO. NOW." The guy starts yelling something at me, and I kindly reminded him he was right outside an army base...so it didn't last long. And when he got across the road, these two adjummas thanked me.

So I guess I did a good deed for the day. Pretty lucky I wasn't killed in the process.

[GoldMember]

You've got to be absolutely hopeless to lose your licence in Korea, given the lack of enforcement. Ok so against all odds some people do lose their licence (doubt it would stop them driving anyway), so what does the current President do. HE PARDONS THEM. By pardoning them, he's going to increase the fatality rate. Might as well pardon paedophiles.
So what do people protest about, BEEF!

[Tarkaan]

[loose_ends]

I've always thought road conditions were a very ironic part of Korean culture.

Generally speaking Koreans are rather concerned about the group and its perception of them. Drinking and smoking aside, they are also generally concerned about their health and safety.

Why don't these aspects dictate road rules? It's like they all put on their alternate egos and let off some steam when behind the wheel.

With that said, Korea is a great place to have a set of wheels without a lot of hassle (from a foreigners point of view). One would be jailed and deported back home for some of the things we get away with here.

[KiteOperations]

well, thats why i'm hesitating to quit smoking.
i have more poetential possibility to die on the street in/out of the car
and thats why i have no driving license. lol.

seoul metro makes you to be puctual.

[Paddycakes]

I drive a lot in Korea.

The driving here is better than China and much better than parts of the Middle East.

What's gets me is the Jay-walking..... I saw once kid nearly get creamed the other day... are they just stupid?

A lot of the high fatalities I suspect are from not using seatbelts - and probably the jay walking.

Also, you see little kids sitting up in the front seat, hands on the dashboard...

Car crashes, out the window they go onto the pavement. Dead.

You'd think seatbelts would be common sense... you'd think... but also remember that seatbelts didn't come into widespread use till the 80's in Canada...