South Korea’s roads and driving culture are special, and I think that most expats would agree with me. Recently a local newspaper sent reporters out with three different foreigners to drive around Seoul and give their feedback about how the roads in Korea compare with the roads in foreign countries, like France. Unfortunately, the newspaper neglected to include pictures/videos of the experience. In lieu of this, we recently held a “Photos from Korean Roads” photo contest on the forums, where users were asked to submit photos of Korea’s unique driving culture. The winner is to be awarded a $100 tab at one of Itaewon’s finest bars, and the photo submissions just keep rolling in. Below, for your enjoyment are some photos submitted from readers all over Korea, illustrating Korea’s roads and driving culture from 2012 and 2013. Keep the submissions coming!
What disabled parking sign? No one else is parking in these perfectly good parking spaces, so I’m going to take up BOTH of them, because I’m special. Fuck disabled people, they can park somewhere else and WALK.
I drive a 13 year old ajeossi-wagon Equus. This is my license to park anywhere, and to be a dickhead in general. Last night I got so trashed on soju with chairman Kim that I kind of just crashed into a public park and passed out. Please understand my situation.
Driving a taxi is a license to be an asshole, as our taxi friend here clearly illustrates by parking his pile of shit directly in front of a bus stop. Ever wonder why bus drivers HATE taxi drivers so much? Now all of the bus passengers have to walk out into moving traffic to get on the bus. Now the bus has to block lanes of traffic while stopping to pick up passengers. Brilliant example of the “Me Me Me” culture of not giving a fuck about anyone else, or laws, or basic common courtesy.
This is what many parking lots look like. In order to leave, one must call several other drivers to move their illegally parked cars, or resort to simply pushing cars out of the way. This is what happens when a parking lot intended for 20 cars is occupied by 45 cars instead. This illustrates how much many people despise public transportation in Korea. They are actually willing to double and triple-park their cars simply to avoid using public transportation.
Pedestrian crosswalk? Fuck pedestrians, and fuck red lights too. I’m special. Please understand my situation.
Red light? Crosswalk? School zone? Fuck that, I’m special. Please understand my culture.
Crosswalk? What crosswalk? I’m going to park my pile of shit here so that people can walk around it, because I’m special and the laws don’t apply to me.
It would seem that the residents in this fine neighborhood grew tired of assholes parking their cars on the sidewalks, forcing pedestrians to walk in the street, so they’ve thrown their bags of trash all over this poor car. Sidewalk? It’s not a sidewalk, it’s my own personal parking spot, because I’m special. Please understand my situation.
I got bombed out of my mind on soju, and driving in a straight line was just too challenging. These nasty metal dividers damaged my car and ripped off one of my wheels. I’m going to sue the government for compensation money. Please understand my situation.
Normal laws don’t apply to me, because my daddy bought me a Lexus. Please recognize my prestige and allow me through the intersection even though the light is red.
The corner of a street is an excellent place to park. Huh? People need to go around me? Who cares! I’m special and laws don’t apply to me.
Crosswalks are the perfect place to park. Know why? There are no yellow lines at a crosswalk. So what if people have to walk around my piece of shit car, I’m special!
Watch out asshole, I’m driving a Jaguar! The road is mine! Red lights and crosswalks don’t apply to me because I’m driving a 12 year old British car. Please recognize my prestige!
Again, it’s not illegal to park on corners, because there are no yellow lines. Please understand my culture. The other cars can just go around me while I sit here in the middle of the street.
Wait wait! I have a good idea! I’m going to stop in the middle of the street, make an illegal left hand turn over a double yellow line, and smash right into this taxi! Then I’m going to sue him and spend the next 3 months in the hospital getting sympathy. Please understand my situation.
You know it’s bad when even the children are afraid to cross the street!
How do you flip a car over and smash it into a light post on a perfectly flat road? There should be some kind of award for this.
My daddy bought me this Audi, but it’s too big for one parking spot. I live in this building, but I don’t give a fuck about my neighbors, or what people think of me, because they don’t drive Audis, and obviously they don’t matter. Please recognize my prestige.
And now the famous Youtube series from “MrRoadWorrier”, illustrating the cultural differences that foreigners may face when trying to adapt themselves to Korea’s unique road culture:
Thanks for bringing tears of laughter to my eyes! Korean selfishness and stupidity in all their glory! But Korea’s a weird ride, a ride that I want to get back on.
I’ve got a theory about why people keeping going back to Korea to work. In my case I’ve done English teaching gigs for a fairly lengthy time and I enjoy it after taking sufficient breaks in my home country. Korea’s the 2nd country I’ve worked in outside my home country and I think it gives some expats a kind of adrenalin rush that’s missed when they’re back home.
I love your blog for its sardonic humour, pithy observations and merciless exposure of the whackiness and fuckery intrinsic to Korea. I do like Korean people generally and love the convenience of Korea, but I’ve had some encounters with people like Korean co workers who are straight out of Michinland and crappy experiences with Korean ‘friends’ who give the term ‘user’ a whole new astonishingly unapologetic dimension.
And last word on the photos – that’s what keys are for, to scrape along the paintwork of these fuckwits’ cars.
Koreans are incapable of walking in a straight line without bumping into oncoming pedestrians. This trait becomes dangerous when they climb behind the wheel of a car and take off on roads where nobody, including the do-nothing police, bother to observe basic traffic laws.
I agree 100%. People ask me if I’ll ever get a car here. I have a hard enough time walking on the sidewalk and keeping my sanity. No way I can deal with the obliviousness and buffoonery of driving here.
Has anyone ever been skiing here? I can imagine it being just like this. I’m a novice but I’d like to try more. I’m pretty large and don’t know if I could stop fast enough when someone cuts in front of me like that. Do people stop in the middle of the slope to use their phones or check their mirrors? Do people ski around reading comic books or playing Anipang on their suhmatuh pones?
Anyone have any non driving or walking experiences of similar jackassery?
Better believe I’ve been skiing in Korea. Did so often. Gave up on the place. Most importantly, never ever go on a weekend or holiday. What you suspect is far far worse… redoubled. Thousands standing around in the middle of the slope: posing, texting, talking on the phone, spitting, flirting with oppa, eating kimbab, applying makeup, taking pictures, brawling, yada yada. Carnage. As you descend the slope prepare to be rear ended – probably best to wear a neck brace before you get whiplash. When you’re queued for the lift expect to be pushed and shoved. It makes the lift go faster, me thinks they thinks. The horde behind you is determined to stand on your skis, so your once attractive boards are now marred and gouged.
Do yourself a favor and ski where civility and competence reign: Japan.
Do-nothing police? I find that quite offen….accurate
http://koreajoongangdaily.joinsmsn.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2966342&cloc=joongangdaily|home|newslist1
That flipped over car’s driver must be the cousin of (or actually the very same) person who moronically came speeding out of Sujeong Tunnel in Busan one morning in early 2006. The speeding fool managed to hit the bars protecting the toll booth workers and flip his car into another protecting bar, ultimately having the car land on its side actually facing the wrong way. I was in a taxi on the side street when that happened. The taxi driver was totally cool; he turned off the meter and said, “You have to see this!” It only took the (other) rubber-necking traffic in front of us 15 minutes to traverse the three blocks to my destination that morning.
Oh, you remember those “roll bars” in front of the ticket booths at a lot of the tunnels in the cities here? Yep, those are specifically designed to protect the workers in the toll booths. The problem is that the workers aren’t in the booths any longer. Now, they’re out of the booths so they can handle more than one lane at a time. All because drivers in Korea are so stupid they can’t remember to carry coins with them on pay roads. I’m wondering how many toll takers have been killed or maimed by the bad drivers here.
I’ve seen countless ‘accidents’ in this country which were not about the driver (as bad as they are), but more about the sheer lack of common sense and inability to actually spend money on maintenance that would keep them safe. It’s actually not that hard to comprehend and readily visible and practical.
Common sense:
#1 ICE is SLIPPERY! SLOW THE FUCK DOWN AROUND CORNERS
#2 SNOW is like ice…see #1
#3 Don’t approach an intersection at full speed and expect your summer ‘performance’ tires to stop you like in the dry.
Look at car tires in parking lots. Many are bald (horrible in the rain, a deathtrap in the snow). Most other drivers use summer tires with SUV’s using highway ‘performance’ tires which are great in warm temperatures get too hard in the cold and don’t plow snow, but repel it. I find the snow in Korea to be pretty non-existent next to Canada, so I keep all-seasons with good treads on them as I do with my wife’s car. When I asked my mechanic why people didn’t use snow tires in winter, he seemed to indicate it was warmer in Korea longer than cold, so people prefer to just keep summer tires on their cars.
Go figure.
Yes, Korean logic…an oxymoron
The motivation I needed to stay away. But will it last . . . Only time will tell.
in the 10 years I’ve spent living in Korea and logging around 25,000 miles a year on my bikes and 7,000 to 10,000 a year in my old Galloper, my Ford F-150 or my Jeep I’ve olny had one accident where a Taxi Ajjussi rear ended me while I was “Gasp” stopped at a stop sign waiting for traffic. fucked up the front of his car and just put a small dent in the heavy steel bumper on my old Galloper.
I’ve also seen some of the craziest shit too. Like two old Harabojji’s killing each other by a head on collission of scooters in the bend of a road in the ditch about a meter off the road while at an S-oil station in the bumfuckedness of Kangwon-Do gassing up my Harley. Watched a kid plow a Bongo truck into a river on a smooth curve at 80 mph. just fucked!
Haha, the “do-nothing police”…
The other night I was walking home from the bar and witnessed two Korean girls who were going at it, hissing and clawing and screeching in their native tongue in a true epitomization of the term ‘cat fight’. There were two police officers on the scene. They were filming it on their smartphones.
Korean park jobs never cease to amaze me. My small country town’s overrun with cars to the point of people parking them in the rotary as if that’s perfectly normal to do. About once a week I almost get run over because someone decides to make a right turn while I’m crossing the street. They don’t even bother to slow down.