By Cho Se-hyon offers some insights for foreigners about driving in Seoul. Here are a few of the insights I can definitely agree with. First, how Koreans like to park their cars:
If you have some hasty errand to run, like buying a ticket at a movie theater or a bottle of water from a convenience store, you can double or even triple park your car even on a busy street in Seoul.
Even if your car blocks the traffic and helps build up a jam and even if people begin to complain, all you have to do is put a blinking tail light on and ignore them.
Here is more personal favorite insight:
Thus, you can drive into the parking lot of a big apartment complex in middle of the night or very early in the morning of, say, a Sunday, and honk at your friends to come down from their apartment.
Don’t worry about waking other people up. The klaxon is there at your finger tip and you have the perfect right to use it in any way and any time you please. If someone opens his apartment window and hollers at you for disturbing his sleep, don’t pay any attention to that crank and keep on blaring until your friends come down.
When I lived in an apartment complex in Uijongbu I found it amazing how many people would pull up and just start honking their horn and someone yell out the window they were coming down. In a nation with so many cell phones why the heck people have to blare their horn when pulling into the apartment complex is beyond me. However, an attitude like this explains why some people do such a thing:
When you want to make a left-turn but there is a long queue in that lane, don’t try to line up at the tail-end and wait for your interminable turn to turn. You can race ahead through a moving right-hand lane and cut in at the head of the queue.
If the people, waiting behind you, get angry, all you have to do is raise your right hand as if to say, thank you. Other drivers may think of you as a shameless person, but what do you care? You are probably not going to meet them again for the rest of your life, right?
Bingo! He hit the nail on the head with that one as well as with a few of his other insights which you can all read here.
1:39 pm on January 20th, 2008 1
Sounds like Seoulsearcher could pass as the Jonathan Swift of Korea. Bravo.
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2:39 pm on January 20th, 2008 2
Just as I always said….its all about the ME in this country.
This explains why they are like 0-50-1 in wars…war come, they run and do their own thing
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2:47 pm on January 20th, 2008 3
I actually tossed an egg at a car doing that one early morning. They guy looked pissed but do I care?
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5:45 pm on January 20th, 2008 4
kingkitty that was a good one both the war record and the egg story!
on my way to work this morning i almost saw a horrific accident luckily it was averted
it was 0530 i come down the hill and end up across the street from McDonalds in itaewon so there are two drunk waeguks on the same side of the street as meet kind of half-way in the road trying to get a cab. No luck except for a taxi on the other side of the street spots them and decides he will stop and do an illegal u-turn across the double line to get his fare.
well the moron obviously doesnt look and a car behind him has to swerve into oncoming traffic and almost takes out the drunk waeguks!!!! it was about a 10 foot miss….now as for oncoming traffic one car had to slam on their brakes to avoid the car which had to avoid the taxi
it was almost a catastrophe
at that point i thought to myself why stand 4-5 ft in the middle of a road get a cab????
thats pretty damn stupid to begin with and koreans always do this and pretty much refuse to move for regular cars!
on a related note the other day i am driving home and a car in front of me has a licene plate fram that says “ENJOY DRIVING” on top
and across the bottom says “KOREA”
i was just wishing i had my camera to snap a good shot of it
where i normally park my car there is enough room for two cars if you have the common decency to pull up far enough and allow it
which i do every day BUT YOU KNOW WHO DOEST KOREANS!!!! the park just right smack in the middle of the roughly 25 ft space
its simply amazing that they can never honestly think of anyone else
i could go on and on but i would get carpel tunnel for typing to much
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6:44 pm on January 20th, 2008 5
There is an intersection that almost monthly as cars run the lights one of them gets hit by another car and runs into a car repair shop, I even saw a city bus run into a empty day care bus and run in the car repair shop, I cant help noticing the care repair shop looks richer every month
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8:08 am on January 21st, 2008 6
There is something like 7 times more traffic accidents in Korea than the US which amazes me because the are 250 million more people in the States. One would think that Koreans would “wise up” and realize this kind of behavoir kills people, but nope, not happening.
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11:42 am on January 21st, 2008 7
I took the girlfriend down to the local “DMV” and had to chuckle when they gave her a 50 page driver’s test study guide and explained that there was 3 weeks worth of instruction and testing. (3 tests I might add. 1 written 2 driving)
The driving instructor knew exactly what I found funny and explained that Koreans have “special driving situation” and that’s why they have to pay 400,000 Won and take all the extra tests insruction.
So it’s obvious that foreigners will never understand these “special driving situations”.
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12:34 pm on January 21st, 2008 8
StKY, everything is special here and you wouldn’t understand it unless you’re also one of the special people.
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7:45 pm on January 21st, 2008 9
I notice another thing the locals do here: ERP
EVENT RECOVERY PERIOD
If they make a turn or something, they pause to fix their hair, text a friend or adjust their seat
Most annoying when they Just have to pull out infront of you then pause as the do the ERP
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8:35 am on January 22nd, 2008 10
There was a wreck at Camp Kim a few weeks ago where a bus skidded across 4 lanes and crashed through the camp wall. The skid marks were about 50 meters long going right through the wall. Does anyone know about this one?
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2:01 pm on January 22nd, 2008 11
the egg thing is a fair idea….forces the guy to clean it off pretty quick…particularly if it’s a new car….be careful with that one though…you could wind up getting in some trouble…..remember that even though they are doing something rude or inconsiderate to you..the idea of ‘retaliation’ or giving them what they deserve (and I agree they deserve it) could get you into a lot of trouble here since it is usually viewed as MUCH worse than the actual act that instigated the retaliation. And I’m not sure but i thing throwing something (anything) from an apartment building is actually a crime here.
On a personal note, I have often thought a well-prepared egg or piss-balloon canon would be a perfect way to actually enjoy those early morning visits from the motorcycle gangs. A baloon filled with food waste water would make nice fodder as well. Just practice with some average water balloons in the early a.m. when there are few people on the street just to calibrate your stink-howitzer and develop nice targeting area and release timing and create some memories. Be sure to take videos!
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