Parking a car can be a death defying event in South Korea, especially when one attempts to park on the stairs.
Expat Alicia Bumpus was driving past Upsquare downtown Ulsan with her boyfriend when they noticed a car balancing tenuously at the top of a long flight of stairs.
“As far as how the car got there: bad driving. So many people here are used to having to drive on the sidewalk to pull into an underground parking lot, that I guess this person thought that’s what they were doing,” Alicia says.
“But there were many heavy pots with plants in them that lined the sidewalk, so the person had to drive carefully between them to even get themselves there. To get to the actual entrance to the parking deck, you have to take a right at the road just a few meters from where the car went down the stairs,” she adds.
Another car is stuck on the same stairs in this the photo taken by the Kyungsang Ilbo.
No one was hurt or too upset by this incident. Police blocked off the bottom of the stairs until they could determine the best way to get the car off the stairs.
“We were just laughing about it because it was so ridiculous and of course we were glad that no one was hurt!”
Alicia posted the photos she took of the car to the Failed Parking in South Korea Facebook group.
“The parking and driving here is “different” from what most of us are used to in our home countries. There are so many instances here of people who seem clueless behind the wheel (stopping in the middle of an intersection so no one can get by, driving on sidewalks, blocking entrances to parking lots, driving without lights on at night, changing lanes without looking), so we definitely got a good laugh out of this one!”