I am a long time reader of your fantastic site and just heard about your accident on Jodi’s site. Please accept my best wishes for a full and speedy recovery. Can’t wait till you’re up, writing and riding again.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

In all 8 accidents, no one ever painted the street because there was no question of who was at fault. It was always the other guy (my dad always said i have a black cloud following me)doing the damage.

Of the 8 accidents, 4 were in cars and I was always wearing my seatbelt. I too have noticed that lately Koreans do tend to wear their seatbelts but I attribute that to the fact that it seems to be the only offense that the police will actually pull you over for with any regularity and cite you. The actually have the equivalent of speed traps for people not wearing seatbelts….one guy spots and a guy down the road nabs the offender.

As for car seats for kids…forget about it…I can barely convince my wife and mother in law that they are necessary 100% of the time…if the kid is crying…he comes out of the car seat…A lot of parents have the “my car is too small for car seats” argument or the “car seats are too expensive” argument. And of course the number one argument is the “my kids would never sit in a car seat” tack….My daughter is 4 and she knows that she can’t go anywhere in my car unless she is in her seat buckled up (which she does nicely by herself :)

I am impressed by the number of people that wear seatbelts here, particularly when compared to people back home in Utah. I haven’t actually counted, but I would say that 80 to 90% of drivers I see on the roads are wearing seatbelts.

All cars have backseat seatbelts, but very few people use them. Just like back home, they get jammed down in the seat and covered with potato chip crums, french fries (or the korean equivalent..kimbab?) and small coins.

The lack of car seats and improper car seat usage is frightening.

Lack of helmet use, or more frequently the improper use of helmets by Koreans is very high. For some reason, however, it has been my experience that foreigners are much worse at wearing helmets here in Korea.

Hmm… it seems that we disagree only on the issue off driver seatbelt use. Maybe it’s just life out in the countryside that makes people not wear seatbelts… dunno.

Also, I have noticed there are no backseat seat belts–not just in private cars but in taxis as well, and children are rarely seen in carseats or are buckled up for that matter.

The occurance of traffic accidents is one thing, and perhaps something not always in someone’s control, but I wonder how many of actual deaths here are preventable with the use of a seat belt, car seat or helmet?