Koreans drive like crazy – yet if everyone drove this crazy it would be safe (order in chaos). But they don’t. Thus, very often, accidents occur.
In Seoul, traffic is not nearly as bad as in Mexico City, but it’s quite similar. Countless motorbikes try to make their way among the long lines of cars, often cutting in front of vehicles. And cars changing lanes, cutting off each other...
In Korea, cars park on the sidewalk. Motorcycles also drive on the sidewalk. I drive on the sidewalk. We all do it.
And if most Koreans know how to handle a stick even in the worst rush hour, a lot of them (just like back home) are slower, older or simply more careful. And accidents take place.
Another cause of car accidents in Korea (again, like in many other countries) is alcohol. As mentioned in a previous post, drinking here is incredibly cheap and accessible. You can get beer and soju from convenience stores at 2am. There’s no “11pm limit” like we have back in Quebec.
So I’ve seen a lot of car accidents here, but it’s never really affected me. That is, until last Friday.
That's Lisa's car getting towed.
My friend Lisa and I were at the teachers’ workshop and she said something about mailing some postcards later that day. I told her not to procrastinate and, after hesitating for a few minutes, she finally agreed and grabbed her car keys.
When we got to the parking lot, she said, “That’s odd. I don’t remember parking sideways.”
There was a Korean lady next to Lisa’s car and she looked mortified. Her gray sports car had two huge red scratches, some tree branches on the hood and a broken light. She looked at us with teary eyes mumbling “mianeyo” (“I’m sorry”).
We soon understood that instead of hitting the breaks when she was parking the car, she had hit the accelerator, smashed Lisa’s car, and went crashing into a tree. Was she drunk? I don’t think so. On her car it said “beginner”.
Long story short, she was driving someone else’s car so we had to wait for her friend to come over. We froze our ass outside as they called the insurance company. Indeed, in Korea you don’t call the police unless someone is injured; just call the insurance company and they will come and see for themselves.
But the lady's insurance had expired. She offered to pay for the reparation and a rental car. It took over 2 hours but finally got settled.
What I learned from this is quite simple: always leave your phone number on the dashboard inside your car.
If I hadn’t told Lisa not to procrastinate, we wouldn’t have gone to the parking lot and caught the lady a few minutes after the accident had happened. Instead, we would have been at the workshop for another 5 hours… the lady wouldn’t have waited that long. She would have just left and Lisa would have been stuck with all the reparation costs.
That’s why Koreans leave their phone number plain visible inside the car. If anyone scratches their car when no one’s inside, they can get in touch with them. It makes you wonder how often such incidents happen over here, eh!
I was told that those are very popular gifts in Korea: a boyfriend will give his girlfriend a little pillow with her phone number sewed on it. She then puts it on the dashboard and they’re both happy.
Funny thing is that I wonder: how many people will actually call the owner of a Jaguar whose car they crashed with their El Camino?
