A few weeks ago, Martina and I were walking
on this very street right here, which is only
30 seconds away from our studio,
which I can literally see from the
spot that I’m sitting at.
We were walking with three of our
other friends, Angelina, Amanda, and Rose.
And you’ve probably seen Rose in couple
of our videos.
She’s the web developer
over at Eat Your Kimchi.
Now, as Martina and I were up ahead,
Rose was a little bit behind us.
When a drunk driver pulled out of
the parking lot right here, and not only
hit rose, but physically drove his
wheels over her chest.
It was definitely the most traumatic experience
we’ve ever been through in Korea,
it’s definitely the most scariest.
Something that Martina’s still not
very comfortable re-living or talking about,
which is why I’m doing this video by myself.
One of the scariest things we think about
is that if it wasn’t Rose that was hit by
the car, it would’ve been us because
we were so close to her.
And the whole point of this video
is not to give you all the details about
what happened at that moment or
what happened afterwards.
What I’m trying to do today is
talk a little bit about drunk driving
in Korea.
Because driver of the car
that hit Rose and almost killed
her was drunk.
VERY drunk, in fact.
The legal blood alcohol limit in
Korea is 0.05.
His was 0.138.
I’m going to tell you a little bit
about the rules of drunk driving in Korea,
and what the police does in situations
of drunk driving.
So, here are some of
the laws about drunk driving in Korea.
If your blood alcohol level is between
0.05 and 0.1, then your license is
suspended for a hundred days.
If your blood alcohol level is above
0.1, then your license is altogether canceled.
There’s also the consequence of
jail time, and fines.
So if your blood
alcohol level is between 0.1 and 0.19,
then you face a jail term of either
one year, or a fine of 5 million won,
which is roughly $5,000.
However,
note that it’s not both a fine AND
going to jail.
You could choose one
or the other.
That’s just drunk driving,
though.
If you actually hit somebody,
then the process is entirely different.
And I can’t give you the exact details
about what your punishment will be,
because that entirely depends on
the injury of the person that you hit
while drunk driving.
There’s a much
bigger penalty, for example, if you kill
somebody while driving drunk,
as opposed to if you just hurt them.
Here’s where things get a little
bit weird to me as a Canadian.
The drunk driver whose blood alcohol
level was 0.138, his license isn’t suspended.
In fact, his car isn’t even taken from him.
He is free to drive anywhere he wants
right now.
I could be wrong here,
but from what I’ve been told in Canada,
if you get caught with a very high blood
alcohol content while driving,
then your car is taken away, and
your license is instantly revoked.
In Korea, though, this guy is still driving
even though he very nearly killed
Rose while driving drunk.
The police have told us the reason
why he still has his car, and the reason
why he still has his license, is because
you cannot punish somebody without
due process.
So once he winds up going
to court, then his license can be revoked,
and then his car can be taken, and
then he can be fined and go to jail.
Also because the drunk driver was
in good standing, in which he had
paid all of his insurance payments,
and he’s never actually been caught
for doing this before, the police didn’t
view him as a threat, so then they
didn’t have to arrest him.
Now this really made my blood boil.
I would figure that he would be arrested
instantly, and have his car taken away,
and that he never be allowed to drive again.
And I thought this was how things are
done in Canada, but supposedly,
this is only a new thing in Canada.
Supposedly back in the 1970’s,
this was not the case.
If you got caught
drunk driving, then you were just given
a ticket and sent home.
So it seems like
Korea at the moment doesn’t view
drunk driving as that big of an issue.
Which is where I would like to disagree
and give you a little bit of stats about
how serious drunk driving is here in Korea.
As of 2014, Korea has a second highest
traffic fatality rates in the OECD.
They’re right below Poland,
and right above the United States.
Also, Korea averages 4.1 pedestrian deaths
for every 100,000 people, while the
average for the rest of the world is
1.4.
Korea almost triples that.
In fact, the police officer we spoke
with told us that this was the 3rd pedestrian
that was hit by a drunk driver that night,
not just in Seoul, but just in this
district alone.
We’re not talking about
all of Korea either.
Just in this district,
three people were run over by drunk drivers.
What’s interesting about these stats
is that they don’t actually show you
the complete picture, because since we
called the police and we got them involved,
we will be part of the statistics.
But
there are a lot of people that actually
handle this out of court without calling
the police and just go through insurances
instead.
And those numbers aren’t
necessarily represented in these stats.
Supposedly what happens is that when
the police aren’t called, then the people
are paid off privately, so that nothing
will be shown on their criminal record.
As a result, the actual number of people
that wind up getting hit by drunk drivers,
in my opinion, is probably a lot higher
than as reported.
Now there’s a few things
that I want to say to people living in Seoul.
If you plan on going out to drink,
don’t drive to that location.
Who in their right mind would drive
to Hongdae on a Saturday night?
There’s a very high percentage of people
that wind up getting drunk here,
and you probably know that you’re
going to get drunk as well.
There’s no parking here,
the roads are so incredibly narrow.
Do not drive here on a Saturday night
if you plan on partying.
Take a taxi.
There are tons of taxis everywhere.
These really tiny, crowded streets that have
cars everywhere and people walking
all the time, are very difficult to drive,
even when you are sober.
Or if you find that you’ve actually
driven here, and then unexpectedly
started drinking and you need to get
home with your car, there’s something
in Korea called a Daeri, which is a
designated driver.
All you do is you
call up the Daeri, a person will come here,
and they will drive you home.
They will be completely sober,
you will get home safe, and it will
only cost you $10 or so. $10 is all
it costs for you to not crush a girl
under your car, and to potentially ruin
her life and her family’s lives forever.
If you are in Korea and you have a car,
keep this number on speed dial:
1600-6829
I know that Korea has a big drinking culture,
and you might be peer pressured into
drinking, so just keep this number on
you so you could call one of these
designated drivers.
There’s even an app
for designated drivers.
I’m leaving the
URL right here.
Install it, click it, get home
safe with a clean conscience,
and not with blood on your hands.
And the last thing I want to say is a
little bit more directed to Korean people
specifically because there’s a bit
of a cultural issue at hand.
What I didn’t wind up saying the story
beforehand is that the drunk driver wasn’t
actually alone.
He was being guided
out by his friends who were telling
him where to turn.
His friends, who
knew that he was completely drunk,
and his friends knew he shouldn’t drive,
yet they didn’t stop home from driving.
And I think a lot of this has to do with
the respect issue in Korea.
If you have
somebody older than you, you can’t
really say no to them if they’re you’re
Hyung (a man who is older than you).
And so even though they knew he was
drunk, they just guided him along.
So while in Canada, we have campaigns
like Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk,
here in Korea there isn’t that much
social awareness campaigns when it
comes to drunk driving, or to say no
to your Hyung if he’s completely drunk.
The problem here is you have to be
“respectful” of your elders, even if they
are making a really shitty decision.
I don’t necessarily know what to say
for this last part.
Friends should not let
other friends drive drunk.
Even if they’re
older than you, even if you have to be
respectful of them, it’s much better for
you to potentially save their lives,
save somebody else’s lives,
some innocent people’s lives,
just by saying no to your elders.
You can do it.
It’s a severe issue
here in Korea, all this drunk driving,
and you need to stop it somehow.
Or at least be a little bit more aware of it.
So that’s it for this video.
I don’t want to end this video entirely
condemning all of Korea, making you
think that everybody’s driving around,
they’re trying to kill you.
That’s obviously
not the case.
But I’m also not going to
say that I walked away from this experience
without feeling a lot darker and a lot
sadder about what has happened to
our friend, and what almost happened
to us.
What I would like to do is to try
to open up this to a conversation to
see what the drunk driving policies
and the laws, and maybe some of the
stats are like in your country.
So we
could try to have a more balanced comparative
thing, rather than us just walking away
from this raw and angry, and dark and
by what was definitely the worst experience
that I’ve had in my entire time here in
Korea.
Also thank you for watching this
video, for listening to what I had to say,
and thank you especially to everybody for
all the outpouring of support for Rose
as she was recovering, it meant a lot to me,
it meant a lot to her, and it meant a lot
to her family as well who’s out of country.
Thank you, everyone.
And… that’s it.