[LETTERS TO THE EDITOR]An overlooked resource

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[LETTERS TO THE EDITOR]An overlooked resource

Published: 05 May. 2005, 21:33

I know Korea has traffic laws, because sometimes there are month-long crackdowns on various offenses, like driving and talking on your cell phone. It’s one of the enduring mysteries of Korea to foreigners (and in some ways, one of Korea’s ineffable charms) that you see so many open, flagrant violations of traffic laws that go unticketed.
One sees buses running red lights, people blocking whole lanes of traffic to sell fish from their pickup trucks, motorcycles taking dangerous shortcuts on sidewalks and people making left-hand turns from the right-hand lane. Many times these acts are done in full view of the police, with little consequence other than giving the observing foreigner a nice little chuckle.
The question is, doesn’t Korea realize there’s a huge source of revenue if they just started issuing traffic tickets? Post a cop at every major intersection; he’d spend all day writing tickets. He’d pay for his salary 10 times over. I suspect Korea could reap so much revenue from traffic tickets that not only would the public coffers overflow, there would be enough money to end all human suffering in Korea, if not most of East Asia.

by Karl Mamer