It is easy to have road rage in Korea. Imagine a place where everyone drives like a big (US) city cab driver, except the cab drivers because they are even worse and don't know the city as well as US cab drivers. Drivers are very selfish. Zippering is an unknown concept here, people drive up against the flow of traffic and push their way in. If there is plenty of room and you signal that you want to move over, they will speed up so you can't. People will cut you off inly to drive slowly so you miss the light. They don't miss the light because they will just run the light. Cabs will drive around traffic, going the wrong way to run a red light. They don't move out of the way for ambulances, though they managed to create a clear path during the fireworks so people could stop and watch them. After all that, they teach small children that they can just walk into traffic and hold up their hands and cars will stop for them. They also don't use carseats or seatbelts, much. One nice thing about Seoul is that they don't honk the horn. In Cairo, they honk constantly. It is much quieter.
In Cairo, lights are meaningless. People don't stop at all. It is worse there except that they don't get bent out of shape over minor accidents. Here, people will stop traffic and not move over for hours over an accident where you can't even see any damage. Also, in Cairo we had diplomatic immunity which we don't here. Here, you always pay, especially if you are a foreigner.
Anyway, it can be very annoying to drive here and Curt and I often yell at the other cars. Ian has started yelling at the cars too,"Car, get outta da way!" "Car, what are you doin?" He even did it (not in the car) in line at the check out counter, he yelled,"Dat lady's in da way!"
But, no swearing so we have made progress! Curt is much worse than me on the road rage issue and Ian has now started yelling at him,"Curt, calm down!"
They do listen to everything you say. Yes they do.
3 comments:
Haha, this is hilarious. I can just imagine little Ian saying that!
Good post. You described the roads perfectly, and the reason I don't drive here!
I have been driving in Cairo long enough to really go with the flow. I can reach this zen state, because usually, it is like you say, totally laid-back, if insane. Nobody cares. Just drive. You cut me off, or I cut you off, ma laysh. We hit bumpers, ma laysh. etc. But every so often, I'll fuss at someone who is being totally stupid. Then I'll get bawled out by the kids for calling someone an idiot, or they'll repeat what I say, and I have to remind us all that calling someone a stupid idiot is not very nice and maybe we shouldn't say out loud what we think... (even if it's true ;-) !)
Kids - they watch and learn! Yipes!
Thought of you and Ian when I saw this LOL cat
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