Russian Roulette on South Korea Roads

Tired of life? Russian roulette too boring a hobby? Then try South Korea’s roads for your next adrenaline fix.

It takes a steely nerve to venture on to the car-choked roads of a nation whose police voiced optimism when a mere 194 people were killed during a recent holiday weekend.

“It was a 32% decrease on the year before . . . things are moving in the right direction,” they said on releasing the road death figures for September’s Chusok holiday.

But a police spokesman glumly conceded that one reason for the drop was traffic congestion.

“Congestion contributed to reducing accidents as motorists were not able to drive their cars at high speed,” he said.

In Seoul, a two-block journey can take an hour at busy periods.

Out of town, the 200-mile drive between the capital and the southern city of Pusan--normally about a five-hour run--was a 13-hour ordeal for some citizens returning home after the Chusok national holiday.

Transport ministry figures show that 13,429 people were killed on South Korean roads last year--or nearly 37 people every day.

The nation’s accident rate lags behind only South Africa and Portugal in the world league, although South Korea easily beats both in the congestion stakes.

Professional drivers are Public Enemy No. 1 to the responsible road-user.

Taxi drivers weave wildly from lane to lane, stopping with no warning to pack another fare into an already-crowded cab.

Cabs are regularly shared, whether you want to or not, although the meter fare is not.

For an exorbitant charge, the ominously-named bullet taxis will guarantee breakneck delivery of fares to neighboring cities and suburbs regardless of traffic conditions.

Bus drivers, harried by timetables devised years ago before the traffic explosion, assume that everybody else will yield to their suicidal onward progress.

A bus driver nearly wiped out a large part of South Korea’s foreign press community recently when a chartered bus in which the journalists were traveling careened out of control after aquaplaning at high speed in torrential rain.

“These things happen,” the driver shrugged phlegmatically after bringing his vehicle back under control just short of a steep drop into a roadside ditch.

Inexperienced drivers, who make up a large percentage of the total, make their only contribution to road safety by driving with their hand firmly on the horn, disregarding other road users.

Pedestrians share the same apparent death wish as drivers, calmly standing between lines of racing cars, trying to cross or to flag down a taxi.

An authoritative wave of the hand is all they deem necessary to halt the onward rush of vehicles.

To stop at some red lights is to incur the wrath of drivers in the rear, who operate by an unwritten law that says certain signals can more or less safely be ignored.

South Korea’s roads are pitifully ill-prepared for the explosion in car ownership, which has resulted from recent years of growing prosperity--about 540 new cars a day are registered in Seoul alone.

The transport ministry says nationwide, new registrations are running at nearly 2,100 daily, adding to the 4.82 million vehicles already clogging the roads.

South Korea’s driving test centers, as well as being an object lesson in Asian bureaucracy, provide a frightening insight into the lack of training for new drivers.

Inside, thousands of potential drivers go from booth to booth, gathering the 20-odd chops, seals and signatures necessary before a license application can be approved.

Outside, learner drivers go through their paces on specially constructed circuits--the roads are deemed too dangerous for novices. They pass the test as long as they stay on the track.

Family and friends tend to come along to watch at the edge of the circuits, smiling and clapping at the free show. Some bring picnic lunches.

If all goes well, the new drivers are let loose to add their own personal mayhem to the traffic chaos.