Driving in Korea

I must admit I was looking forward to the experience of driving in Korea.  Susan, on the other hand, said she had no desire to drive in Korea.  She has since softened her opinion to "no desire to drive in Seoul."  Since arriving here we have primarily relied on the school shuttle bus service.  It leaves the campus almost every half hour and makes a number of stops in the nearby city of Pohang.  I kept a sharp eye out the window of the shuttle bus trying to identify landmarks and streets that would be helpful when I got the opportunity to get behind the wheel.  That first opportunity came when another professor asked me to drive his mini van into town as he and his wife were trading shifts at a children's hospital where one of their youngsters needed a short stay.  The mission was successful and I considered myself an experienced Korean driver.

The true test came over the Chusok holiday where our family had a 5 day break from my teaching assignments.  You've seen the kid's reports and seen some of the pictures.  Here's the real story from the perspective of the driver.  We rented a 12 passenger van for the extra long weekend and headed out on our first day to Andong.  Each car in Korea generally has a GPS device to help find your way.  Some of the streets are narrow, often poorly marked in rural areas, and we have yet to find a decent street map for Pohang.  The GPS device not only helps you find your way, but has the additional feature of alerting the driver to every speed camera on the roads and highways.  This is very helpful since a violation of the speed laws will lead to a ticket in the mail.  You almost never see police officers and the highway and traffic stops are equally rare in the city.  The GPS device both blinks between dark and light to notify you that there is a camera coming and also gives an audible beeping sound to alert you to slow down.  Unfortunately, Susan and her sister Mary found the chatter and sounds from the GPS device distracting and turned the sound off when they took the car for test ride to the local street market the day before our first excursion.  That turned out to be a bad idea further enhanced by my interpretation of the blinking by the GPS device to be a simple notification that we were exceeding  the speed limit.  I would slow down when I noticed it, but without any sense of urgency.  After a day or two of driving we managed to get the sound turned back on and realized the full impact of this error.  Suffice it to say we are dreading the potential avalanche of speeding tickets showing up in our mail box.  Fortunately, some of my students inform me that some of the speed cameras are not actually turned on and that there is a "grace" given by not sending tickets if you are going less than 10 kilometers over the speed limit.

Here are some other observations as our travels took us much of the length and breadth of Korea over the 5 days.  Cars are king in Korea and the larger the vehicle, the more it controls the roadway.  Pedestrians, however, must be especially cautious in cross walks.  Most cars pay little attention to pedestrians.  Traffic lights are puzzling to someone used to driving in the US.  Red lights are often ignored if there isn't any cross traffic.  They have a puzzling system for left turns I've not yet been able to decipher.  Sometimes you can turn left on a green light, and sometimes you can't.  It may depend on whether they have a green left turn arrow, and then again, maybe it doesn't.  I've adopted a system of not turning on a green light unless the vehicle behind me honks, and then only if they pull around and make the turn in front of me.  At that point I will follow them.  

Driving in Seoul is more difficult, but it adds to the adventure.  I remember stopping at one traffic control light that was both green and red at the same time.  I was inclined to read that as a form of caution sign that allowed me to do what I wanted.  My inclination was tempered somewhat by the presence of a police checkpoint immediately behind me and a police vehicle to my left that was waiting at the same light.  What I really wanted to do was make a right turn.  I think that's okay on a red light in Korea, but wasn't sure (and not anxious to find out from the police officer to my left.)  I confirmed with Susan that the light was both red and green.  After waiting a bit with no progress I decided to risk the right turn.  It didn't draw any attention and I was on my merry way.  GPS devices, although helpful, can also be as confused as I was.  After carefully following some of the directions in Seoul, I sometimes ran into a dead end or was unable to execute a turn because of the existence of a wall.  They would reroute, have me make a u-turn and try an altogether different route.

Ambulances are equipped with lights and sirens in Korea.  Unfortunately, Korean drivers largely ignore them.  No one pulls over to the side of the road or attempts to clear a lane for them to get through.  Instead the ambulance weaves it's way in and out of traffic and occasionally uses the side of the road as a means of getting through traffic jams.  I largely attribute all this confusion to Korea's relatively recent prosperity with its economy.  They simply don't have the experience that some of the older economies have with traffic problems.  Now that there are many more drivers, these kinks will eventually work their way out.  

Having said all this, I am enthused about driving in Korea.  We are hoping to purchase a used van in the next month or two.  Despite our misfortunes with the speed cameras, I think they have a definite impact on slowing traffic down on the highways.  They have enough of the cameras at frequent intervals that, even though traffic always speeds up again after the light, the overall speed is slower than the US system that generally requires an officer to write a ticket.  I think that might work well in the US.

Ken Chinn