Here in Korea, they practice what I call “creative driving”    At first glance, much of the driving seems similar to the US.   But that changes quickly.    Let me talk about the legal differences first:

1)   U-turns are not only legal, but encouraged.    Especially in large 6 lane boulevards, it’s just fine to make a U-turn.    You’re supposed to do them in places that are marked, but that doesn’t stop most people from pulling a U-ewy whenever the mood strikes them.

2) The left on green.   You can make a left at a light, but only when the green arrow is lit up.   This really confused me for a couple days, because you see a green light and a lot of people stopped at it, waiting to make the left turn.   Once again, this (like all laws) is optional, but it goes followed more then most.

3)   Speed traps.   The Koreans are very fair about speed traps.   They don’t really have cops to monitor the speed (at least very rarely), they just have speed cameras.    Go over a certain speed and the camera takes your picture and sends you a bill.   But the interesting bit is the camera a clearly marked on the roads and highways.   You’ll see signs that tell you a camera is ahead, say 500m.   Since the range of the cameras is much less then that, it’s plenty of time to slam on the brakes, get down to a legal speed, and then go under the camera.   At which point you floor it again and continue until the next camera sign.   And this is pretty much how the highway traffic operates.    I really don’t know why they bother.    Of course, you might miss a sign and get hit, but you think they could come up with a better system.   They actually sell little devices that look like a radar detector, except it’s a GPS system.   It’s been programmed with all the camera locations in the country, so it makes a noise and tells you if one is coming up so you have time to slow down.    Very strange.

4)  Emergency vehicles.    All emergency vehicles (police, ambulance, etc) have their lights going all the time.   The siren they turn on when there is a real emergency, but no one really changes any driving style in that situation either.   I once saw a bunch of fire trucks, an ambulance, etc with sirens and everything going down a busy street and it seems like the only difference from normal was that no one was cutting them off.   But they weren’t concerned about getting out of the way or otherwise making room.

Of course, these are the legal differences.   In normal practice, just about anything goes.   I have seen people on a 6-lane boulevard come to stopped traffic at a red light, and rather then wait, pass all the traffic on the left (into the on-coming lanes) and then make a giant right turn to eventually go right.    The worst are the bus, truck and taxi drivers.   Most of the time the theory is the right of way goes to the heaviest vehicle, but the taxi drivers must have a poor grasp of how density works.   They are pretty fearless.   Even the bus drivers are pretty oblivious to having a bunch of people standing in the back when it comes to sudden turns, stops and starts.    Fun, but crazy.

Finally, there seems to be no concept of a one-way road here.  Roads at home that would be a one-way alley have two way traffic with cars parked on both sides of the street and pedestrians everywhere.   It’s not uncommon to meet someone coming from the other way and have to back your car up to the last intersection so that both cars can get around each other.

I can’t leave driving with a comment on the parking.   The Koreans are just as creative with parking as they are with driving.    Was surprised to go out into our parking lot to find that several cars were just totally parked in by people who had just left their cars haphazardly in the parking lot.   I saw this for a couple days, and then finally asked one of my Korean co-workers about it.   Apparently, if you find yourself parked in, you’re supposed to just push the offending car out of the way.   They are supposed to leave the car in neutral.    Hopefully they remember to do this or you’re just stuck.   I couldn’t believe it.  

All in all, not too bad.   Although Heather hasn’t driven yet and she says she’s content to go the year without driving at all.    Probably better that way.    Anyway, that’s probably enough on this topic.   Stay tuned for more topics on life in Korea.