Driving in Korea

Yesterday I saw the craziest thing. Okay, so not THE craziest, but it was weird. In the morning I stopped by Family Mart to pick up a cappuccino, as usual. After paying, I go outside, and there is a white kia pulled up on the curb. Nothing unusual here yet. Cars often hop the curb and park on the sidewalk. The unusual part is how the driver decided to re-enter the street. His whole car is up on the sidewalk. Now, the street is directly to his left so in theory, he should reverse a touch and pull out easily onto the road. Well naturally the obvious option was a no-go. Directly in front of the car is the entrance to my apartment building's parking garage area. To prevent cars from driving onto the sidewalk from this entrance, there are some short, maybe foot and a half tall concrete pylons. There are maybe seven spanning the length of the sidewalk's border with the street entrance.  They are each about 4 feet apart. This driver decided to try to avoid the pylons and enter the street via the entrance to the parking garage. Unfortunately, he forgot to take into account that his car is not, in fact, four feet wide.

Head out the window, he is expertly avoiding the pylon just left of his car's front corner. Unwittingly, he is literally smashing the right corner of his car against the pylon a mere 5 feet away. I'm begin to watch as I hear the crunching sound of his bumper grinding against the concrete pylon. Unfortunately this man doesn't notice the noise, or chooses to ignore it. He can't figure out why his car won't move forward as he presses the gas. he reverses a half a foot and the changes gears to drive and pushes once more into the pylon. he presses the gas, the engine revs and his car moves maybe a cm deeper into the pylon. He seems befuddled and it is at this point that I decide to inform him of his self-destructive driving. I wave, and point to the corner of his car being crushed. He looks at me. Acknowledges my warning and the proceeds to repeat his attempt again, in spite of me saying, hey guy, the front corner of your car is being repeatedly smashed in for no reason.

Imagine repeatedly ramming your car into significantly fatter versions of these. Now imagine not realizing your car is being rammed into these. Hard, right? Welcome to Korea!

Oh well. I did what I could to warn him.