I haven’t been to South Korea yet and don’t recall hearing about strict laws there but this one seems to be pretty fair and make a lot of sense.
If you happen to find yourself in a taxi in Seoul, you better think twice before throwing up in the car.
If you do find yourself in this situation, you’ll be paying a hefty fine which started today, February 1.
I came across this story from Smarter Travel.
The “city of Seoul and two organizations representing the interests of professional taxi drivers” came up with how much you will be fined for breaking the law. You’ll be paying 150,000 which comes to about $138 US.
According to the article, 42.5% of complaints by drivers had to do with people vomiting in their cars.
Here is how this problem is described in the article, “taxi drivers clean over and over again, but the vomit smell lasts so long that often they can’t drive the taxi again the next day.”
The hefty $138 fine will go to help pay to clean the car and “offset any operating losses drivers might incur from taking their taxis out of service“.
It’s sad that this problem has gotten so bad that a law had to be put in place to help with the issue.
Find out more from Smarter Travel here.
JGM- I agee, it does seem like a great law if this is really a problem.
The fine is aimed at drunk businessmen and drunk anyone alike, including foreigners.
Great law. Them taxi drivers make scraps so hopefully more people will barf in their cars, and they’ll make more money because knowing Koreans, they won’t lose a day of work just because of vomit smell.
BillyBob- Thanks for the info! I wasn’t seriously warning travelers visiting South Korea about this fine. I did find it interesting to share though!
This is not aimed at tourists; its aimed at drunken businessmen on after-work binges. Very common in Korea.