For the last 5 years I’ve made South Korea my home primarily to bank some coin. Commuting on my non-gas guzzling 125cc motorcycle has helped me save, but it hasn’t been without some discomfort and risk. The discomfort is no worries. Sometimes riding a motorcycle in stinging, saturating rain, or the freezing cold of winter, I can handle. It’s the risk of injury or death while riding a motorcycle in Korea that concerns me. I’m not particularly worried about crashing myself, as I’ve done that plenty of times in my youth while dirt biking. What I’m worried about is being involved in an accident with a Hyundai, Kia or Daewoo. If you have ever been to Korea you would know that, in general, Koreans are poor and therefore dangerous drivers.
Traffic in Seoul, South Korea's capital.
How dangerous is driving in Korea?
Statistics from the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) show that Korea is one of the most dangerous developed nations to drive in. Compared to my home country, Australia, an average citizen is roughly twice as likely to die on the roads in Korea, and there are 3 times as many deaths per million vehicles. Korean emergency medical care, road infrastructure, and traffic law enforcement, seem almost as good as Australia’s, so these factors won’t explain much of Korea's much higher fatality rates. There is more traffic congestion in Korea, which may explain something. But I doubt these or other factors can be anything more than minor relative to the one glaringly obvious difference: there is a much higher frequency of bad, dumb, and reckless driving here in Korea. This is a factor that certainly can kill.
Bad and dumb driving
Koreans frequently exhibit their many bad driving habits, which significantly raises the driving danger levels over here. I estimate that Koreans use turn signals less than half as much as Aussies (and other Westerners). This reduced signaling means a lot of surprise lane changing, surprise merging, surprise turning, and unsurprisingly, more accidents. Koreans frequently break or stop without any apparent reason other than confusion. A scooter-riding American friend of mine was caught out like this, sustaining serious injuries. She ended up crashing through the rear window of a van that surprise stopped in the middle of the road. Additionally, Koreans apparently don’t understand the concept of blind spots, and therefore never check them when changing lanes. If a vehicle does happen to be in their blind spot, the surprised motorist (which has regularly been me on my moto) has to take evasive action, get on the horn, or otherwise collide. Bad habits such as riding motorcycles without helmets, not buckling up, and talking on the phone while driving, are almost the norm over here. Some people even watch TV while driving (check out this BBC news article). Finally, due to Koreans not properly securing loads on their vehicles, I have regularly had to swerve my moto around mid-road objects. The most serious (and comical) of these instances involved a giant kim-chi cabbage that I narrowly avoided at speed.
Dumb Korean driving isn’t just dangerous, it can also be hilarious. For example, watching drivers, relying solely on their mirrors, reverse into things (other than people) can be funny. Last week I saw a Korean woman driving with no seat belt, talking on the phone, with her baby on her lap! To avoid direct sunlight from darkening their skin, I’ve seen Korean women drive one handed whilst holding fans and other objects over their faces. On several occasions I have witnessed people riskily reversing down highway exit ramps after taking a wrong turn. Koreans don’t seem to realize that parking your car on a busy road while you run into a shop or the bank can be dangerous. I couldn’t believe it when I saw a dude stop his car on Jeju Island’s biggest and busiest highway, put on his hazard lights, and get out to snap some photos of the sunset!
A TV in a Korean taxi
Reckless driving
Unfortunately Korea is full of reckless drivers, and while they can be entertaining to watch, their behavior really is no joke. On a typical day heading to work I’ll see drivers speeding, tailgating like mad, swerving in and out of lanes like lunatics, and using turning lanes to overtake in. Reckless drivers exist all over the world, but there are more of them here.
Risky overtaking must claim many a life on Korea’s opposing lane roads. Both my partner and I have narrowly avoided potentially fatal head-ons whilst living here, and our stories are by no means unique. In my case I rounded a bend to encounter an oncoming vehicle in my lane that was attempting to overtake 3 other vehicles at once. Upon seeing me the driver didn’t abandon his maneuver and return to his lane, but instead continued to accelerate and engage me in a lethal game of chicken. I lost and left the road at 60kmph, fortunately not losing control, while he, just a meter or two away, flew past me. In my partner’s case, she was getting a ride home with her workmate, and while rounding a bend they happened upon an overtaking driver about to smash them head on. My partners workmate had no time to react, and very luckily didn’t, as the overtaking driver swerved off the road, very narrowly avoiding a deadly collision, but still crashing.
As a motorist proceeding through a green light, or a pedestrian crossing on a green walk signal, it’s dangerous not to continually look left and right in Korea as red-light-running is rampart. I’ve had plenty of near misses, but the reason red-light-running drivers shit me so bad is because I’ve seen them kill (probably). Here’s the short version of it: On a red light at a busy intersection I was waiting at the front of traffic, along with 2 Korean motorcyclists. When the light went green the 3 of us started to go. One of the other motorcyclists and I looked left and casually stopped due to the speeding bus that was running the red light. The other Korean motorcyclist failed to look left and, right in front of me, he was smashed by the front corner of the bus. He bounced to the side of the bus where his head, partially protected by a half hat helmet, then went under the edge of the rear wheel. Despite blood flowing freely from his nose and mouth, and his damaged skull indicating massive head trauma, he was still breathing when the ambulance took him away just 10 minutes later. Very sadly, I would be extremely surprised if he survived for much longer.
Criticizing the reckless driving of Koreans by honking the horn, or using hand signals, can be dangerous. I've given up doing this after being attacked on 3 separate occasions. These 3 drivers all revenged my criticism by threatening me with death, dangerously swerving at me and forcing me to ride into the gutter or off the road to avoid a collision. On only one of these occasions, after being furiously tailgated and attempted to pass, did I hand signal with my middle finger.
Another accident in Korea (nobody is in the car)
Why can’t they drive?
Many factors may be responsible for the bad, dumb, and reckless driving of Koreans, but I believe only 2 are of major significance. Imagine that a country without cars or roads was magically given them overnight. How well do you think the citizens of that country would drive? That’s right, terribly. Well, this is in essence what has happened in Korea, and it explains much of Korea’s bad and dumb, but not reckless, driving. Australia (like many other nations) has been wealthy, and therefore driving, for quite some time now. During this time Australia’s driving culture has grown, evolved, progressed, and come to infect almost all Australians. Contained within this culture are ideas on how to be a good and safe driver, as well as traffic laws and regulations. After every time an Aussie became aware of their bad or dumb driving, after every reprimanding honk of the horn or thank you gesture, after every piece of driving advice or criticism taken, after every accident or tragedy, and after every successful road-safety education initiative, Australia’s driving culture minutely evolved, and on average, Aussie driving minutely improved. Over our long driving history these countless minute cultural refinements have had an accumulative effect to produce what is today Australia’s culture of good and safe driving. Korea has not been wealthy enough to allow the majority of its citizens to drive for as long as Australia has. Whilst Korea now has nice cars and roads, because of the relatively recent appearance of widespread driving (still several decades ago), a culture of good and safe driving has not yet evolved (at least not to the level of Australia’s). This theory predicts that the Japanese, who have been wealthier longer than Koreans, are better drivers, and that it’s mayhem on the roads in China. This cultural lag means that collectively Koreans are, relative to Aussies or the Japanese, still learning to drive.
Koreans are more tolerant of reckless driving than Westerners. In my experience Westerners are more likely to be angered by or criticize (with the horn or other signals) a reckless driver's behavior. As passengers we will tell a driver to take it easy. This cultural difference certainly enables reckless driving in Korea. But I believe an important additional factor is at work, and that is stress. Stress can produce lower states of rationality. Combined with a sense of urgency this can lead to risk taking while driving. The pressure is on in Korea, and people are stressed. Koreans work hard, study hard, and put great expectations on each other, and on their children. Many stressed out Koreans are the same people that, while driving, are speeding, swerving through lanes, tailgating, riskily overtaking, and running red lights. They are worked up and in a hurry to get wherever they are going, whether they’re late or not. It’s no coincidence that Korea now has the highest suicide rate of all 30 OECD nations (Korea’s suicide rate is more than 3 times that of Australia’s). The same stresses that drive people to kill themselves also drive people to drive like madmen, and the situation is bad in Korea.
Becoming better drivers
Given time and more driving, cultural evolution will naturally run a progressive course in Korea, infecting all its citizens, and the status quo of bad and dumb driving will improve. Better driver training and road-safety education initiatives will help speed this process up. And yet, implementing road-safety education initiatives to alter Korea's culture of reckless driving and tolerance of it can only achieve partial success, as a second major source of the problem, stress, won’t be addressed. For Korea to more effectively reduce its high frequency of reckless driving, people are going to have to chill out. How to practically achieve stress reduction on a nation wide scale, I don’t know. Maybe try not working so hard. In the future, unless Koreans become even more stressed, then Korean driving is bound to improve. For now though, Koreans are, in a way, stressed learner drivers.
Traffic in Seoul, South Korea's capital.How dangerous is driving in Korea?
Statistics from the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) show that Korea is one of the most dangerous developed nations to drive in. Compared to my home country, Australia, an average citizen is roughly twice as likely to die on the roads in Korea, and there are 3 times as many deaths per million vehicles. Korean emergency medical care, road infrastructure, and traffic law enforcement, seem almost as good as Australia’s, so these factors won’t explain much of Korea's much higher fatality rates. There is more traffic congestion in Korea, which may explain something. But I doubt these or other factors can be anything more than minor relative to the one glaringly obvious difference: there is a much higher frequency of bad, dumb, and reckless driving here in Korea. This is a factor that certainly can kill.
Bad and dumb driving
Koreans frequently exhibit their many bad driving habits, which significantly raises the driving danger levels over here. I estimate that Koreans use turn signals less than half as much as Aussies (and other Westerners). This reduced signaling means a lot of surprise lane changing, surprise merging, surprise turning, and unsurprisingly, more accidents. Koreans frequently break or stop without any apparent reason other than confusion. A scooter-riding American friend of mine was caught out like this, sustaining serious injuries. She ended up crashing through the rear window of a van that surprise stopped in the middle of the road. Additionally, Koreans apparently don’t understand the concept of blind spots, and therefore never check them when changing lanes. If a vehicle does happen to be in their blind spot, the surprised motorist (which has regularly been me on my moto) has to take evasive action, get on the horn, or otherwise collide. Bad habits such as riding motorcycles without helmets, not buckling up, and talking on the phone while driving, are almost the norm over here. Some people even watch TV while driving (check out this BBC news article). Finally, due to Koreans not properly securing loads on their vehicles, I have regularly had to swerve my moto around mid-road objects. The most serious (and comical) of these instances involved a giant kim-chi cabbage that I narrowly avoided at speed.
Dumb Korean driving isn’t just dangerous, it can also be hilarious. For example, watching drivers, relying solely on their mirrors, reverse into things (other than people) can be funny. Last week I saw a Korean woman driving with no seat belt, talking on the phone, with her baby on her lap! To avoid direct sunlight from darkening their skin, I’ve seen Korean women drive one handed whilst holding fans and other objects over their faces. On several occasions I have witnessed people riskily reversing down highway exit ramps after taking a wrong turn. Koreans don’t seem to realize that parking your car on a busy road while you run into a shop or the bank can be dangerous. I couldn’t believe it when I saw a dude stop his car on Jeju Island’s biggest and busiest highway, put on his hazard lights, and get out to snap some photos of the sunset!
A TV in a Korean taxiReckless driving
Unfortunately Korea is full of reckless drivers, and while they can be entertaining to watch, their behavior really is no joke. On a typical day heading to work I’ll see drivers speeding, tailgating like mad, swerving in and out of lanes like lunatics, and using turning lanes to overtake in. Reckless drivers exist all over the world, but there are more of them here.
Risky overtaking must claim many a life on Korea’s opposing lane roads. Both my partner and I have narrowly avoided potentially fatal head-ons whilst living here, and our stories are by no means unique. In my case I rounded a bend to encounter an oncoming vehicle in my lane that was attempting to overtake 3 other vehicles at once. Upon seeing me the driver didn’t abandon his maneuver and return to his lane, but instead continued to accelerate and engage me in a lethal game of chicken. I lost and left the road at 60kmph, fortunately not losing control, while he, just a meter or two away, flew past me. In my partner’s case, she was getting a ride home with her workmate, and while rounding a bend they happened upon an overtaking driver about to smash them head on. My partners workmate had no time to react, and very luckily didn’t, as the overtaking driver swerved off the road, very narrowly avoiding a deadly collision, but still crashing.
As a motorist proceeding through a green light, or a pedestrian crossing on a green walk signal, it’s dangerous not to continually look left and right in Korea as red-light-running is rampart. I’ve had plenty of near misses, but the reason red-light-running drivers shit me so bad is because I’ve seen them kill (probably). Here’s the short version of it: On a red light at a busy intersection I was waiting at the front of traffic, along with 2 Korean motorcyclists. When the light went green the 3 of us started to go. One of the other motorcyclists and I looked left and casually stopped due to the speeding bus that was running the red light. The other Korean motorcyclist failed to look left and, right in front of me, he was smashed by the front corner of the bus. He bounced to the side of the bus where his head, partially protected by a half hat helmet, then went under the edge of the rear wheel. Despite blood flowing freely from his nose and mouth, and his damaged skull indicating massive head trauma, he was still breathing when the ambulance took him away just 10 minutes later. Very sadly, I would be extremely surprised if he survived for much longer.
Criticizing the reckless driving of Koreans by honking the horn, or using hand signals, can be dangerous. I've given up doing this after being attacked on 3 separate occasions. These 3 drivers all revenged my criticism by threatening me with death, dangerously swerving at me and forcing me to ride into the gutter or off the road to avoid a collision. On only one of these occasions, after being furiously tailgated and attempted to pass, did I hand signal with my middle finger.
Another accident in Korea (nobody is in the car)Why can’t they drive?
Many factors may be responsible for the bad, dumb, and reckless driving of Koreans, but I believe only 2 are of major significance. Imagine that a country without cars or roads was magically given them overnight. How well do you think the citizens of that country would drive? That’s right, terribly. Well, this is in essence what has happened in Korea, and it explains much of Korea’s bad and dumb, but not reckless, driving. Australia (like many other nations) has been wealthy, and therefore driving, for quite some time now. During this time Australia’s driving culture has grown, evolved, progressed, and come to infect almost all Australians. Contained within this culture are ideas on how to be a good and safe driver, as well as traffic laws and regulations. After every time an Aussie became aware of their bad or dumb driving, after every reprimanding honk of the horn or thank you gesture, after every piece of driving advice or criticism taken, after every accident or tragedy, and after every successful road-safety education initiative, Australia’s driving culture minutely evolved, and on average, Aussie driving minutely improved. Over our long driving history these countless minute cultural refinements have had an accumulative effect to produce what is today Australia’s culture of good and safe driving. Korea has not been wealthy enough to allow the majority of its citizens to drive for as long as Australia has. Whilst Korea now has nice cars and roads, because of the relatively recent appearance of widespread driving (still several decades ago), a culture of good and safe driving has not yet evolved (at least not to the level of Australia’s). This theory predicts that the Japanese, who have been wealthier longer than Koreans, are better drivers, and that it’s mayhem on the roads in China. This cultural lag means that collectively Koreans are, relative to Aussies or the Japanese, still learning to drive.
Koreans are more tolerant of reckless driving than Westerners. In my experience Westerners are more likely to be angered by or criticize (with the horn or other signals) a reckless driver's behavior. As passengers we will tell a driver to take it easy. This cultural difference certainly enables reckless driving in Korea. But I believe an important additional factor is at work, and that is stress. Stress can produce lower states of rationality. Combined with a sense of urgency this can lead to risk taking while driving. The pressure is on in Korea, and people are stressed. Koreans work hard, study hard, and put great expectations on each other, and on their children. Many stressed out Koreans are the same people that, while driving, are speeding, swerving through lanes, tailgating, riskily overtaking, and running red lights. They are worked up and in a hurry to get wherever they are going, whether they’re late or not. It’s no coincidence that Korea now has the highest suicide rate of all 30 OECD nations (Korea’s suicide rate is more than 3 times that of Australia’s). The same stresses that drive people to kill themselves also drive people to drive like madmen, and the situation is bad in Korea.
Becoming better drivers
Given time and more driving, cultural evolution will naturally run a progressive course in Korea, infecting all its citizens, and the status quo of bad and dumb driving will improve. Better driver training and road-safety education initiatives will help speed this process up. And yet, implementing road-safety education initiatives to alter Korea's culture of reckless driving and tolerance of it can only achieve partial success, as a second major source of the problem, stress, won’t be addressed. For Korea to more effectively reduce its high frequency of reckless driving, people are going to have to chill out. How to practically achieve stress reduction on a nation wide scale, I don’t know. Maybe try not working so hard. In the future, unless Koreans become even more stressed, then Korean driving is bound to improve. For now though, Koreans are, in a way, stressed learner drivers.
