Scary Drivers

The scariest drivers I have seen mostly have not been in the U.S. But, while I'm talking about the U.S. I have seen some really crazy things here too, some fatal happen over the years. It is one reason why I prefer not to ride a motorcycle on Freeways anywhere if I can help it because especially what I have seen during my life.

The scariest of all things likely was when I was 8 or 9 years old when I saw a carload of people flying into my side of the freeway. They were 20 feet above our heads flying into traffic behind us. I was little and said to my Dad as a full carload (a stationwagon full of a family) with people screaming because now I know they all knew they were going to die. (and likely they did). Because they went into the middle of 4 lanes of heavy traffic going 70 miles per hour. So, you just knew about 20 people were going to die that. LIkely they were traveling the other direction on the freeway and some kind of small car they hit which catapaulted them over the freeway fence and 20 feet into the air into 4 lanes of 70 mph traffic going the other way.  I said naively to my father, "Aren't we going to help them?" He looked at me as the young kid I was and said, "No. We can't" because he knew right then everyone was going to die and he didn't want me to see that happen. So, once I realized many days or years later what had happened there I felt kind of sick knowing that all those people likely died as well as many in the full lanes of traffic on the Ventura Freeway then likely around 1957 in the San Fernando Valley in the Los Angeles Area.

However, as countries go the really scariest country I have driven a car in has to be a toss up  between Nepal and India in 1985 in December when I drove a car part of the way to the Indian Border from Kathmandu. Then it was a single lane road which means only one car can be on the pavement going either direction. So, a game of chicken is played withe biggest buses and trucks staying on the road and forcing everyone else off the road to pass. So, remember here there wasn't two lanes, there was only one lane that both directions had to use.

I have seen motorcycles driven off these roads and into the trees more than once. It is debatable whether Truckers or motorcyclists in Asia are the craziest in these situations. However, motorcyclists die the most often. And in Bangkok in 1985 and 1986 I saw at least 10 knocked over Vespa like scooters with drivers likely hauled away to the hospital ever day I was in Bangkok. Delivery men would have about 100 shoe boxes on those Vespas with them with one box out so they could see forward so accidents and deaths were very common in Bangkok then.

This time I was going to Seoul, South Korea which is sort of like going to an Asian version of New York or Tokyo in a way. And the drivers there, especially trucks and motorcycles were crazy like I have come to expect often in Asia. There is a different sense of macho in Asia where if you die being macho it is almost welcomed. So, I still am sort of wincing at what I saw often on the roads of Seoul, South Korea from motorcyclists (which aren't allowed on freeways there at all at this point) and trucks and buses (because I was always in a car which was a Samsung (think Hyundai Sonata) and you basically know what I was driving in. My driver, my friend was relatively new to driving in Seoul so he basically only wanted to drive in the suburbs and let his wife (when she was young she rode a Honda 400 motorcyle) so she was no shrinking violet) drive deep into Seoul when we had to drive through Seoul to get to Gimpo Airport to fly to Jeju Island which is South Korea's (and to some degree China's) Hawaii like place to visit south of South Korea but owned by South Korea and also it is a tourist destination for Japan, Australia, Russia and people from the U.S. and Europe who have discovered the Lotte Hotel to the north side of the Island I believe.

However, remember it snows 1 to 3 days in the winter so the best time to visit for people from Europe or the U.S. or Canada would be fall or spring. Because it is really hot and humid when most South Koreans go there during the summers. It is so hot you have to be in the water or in Air conditioning then and it is really humid.