With Independence Day, comes the traditional running around wild by the local motorcycle gangs.
With this in mind the Korean National Police(KNP) has introduced new equipment and is deploying 5400 officers in order to crack down on the motorcycle gangs. The new equipment are paint ball guns to mark the riders for later arrest and patrol cars equipped with CCTV cameras in order to record the gang’s activities for use as evidence.
However, the KNP has ruled out the use of nets and chains that the Japanese Police use to stop motorcycle gangs saying that they are too “dangerous”.
Personally, if the KNP wants to seriously crack down on the motorcycle gangs, then it should take its kid gloves off. The reason that the bike gangs ignore the police is because they know that there isn’t much the police can do. And IMO, I don’t think the paint guns and the cameras will help the police shed the image of being ineffective. If the KNP like the Japanese police use equipment that will for sure stop them in their tracks, thus enabling on the spot arrests, then maybe the gangs will give second thought before they race around the country.
While on the topic of police equipment, why does the KNP keep on investing in those dorky looking searchlights on the roof of the patrol cars, when they rarely/never use them?
34 Comments
I really have no idea what they’re talking about when they discuss “bike gangs.” Am I singularly unobservant or do I live in the wrong part of town?
The Korean term for them is ‘폭주족’. They race around major streets and roads late at night or way early in the morning, so unless you happen to be driving during that hour you won’t see much of them.
As a partial answer, there are gangs of bikers that ride around, en masse, disrupting traffic. They do not, murder people or run drugs or liquor. They seem to only disrupt traffic, which, apparently, is a horrible crime in Seoul. I can only wonder how many people will be injured by some guy firing paint guns in public.
I hardly read the article because this is such a non-issue. More good could be accomplished if the government would focus on the pollution problem with two-cylinder “auto-bikes” that put out more pollution than a full-size car. Take a trip to Bangkok for an example of what a problem this is.
As usual the Korean Police are barking up the wrong tree.
I would have thought the more dangeroous gangs are:
Food deliver scooter “gangs” on sidewalks,
Bus driver “gangs”,
Taxi driver “gangs”, cutting across 3 lanes to pick up a fare,
Adjuma SUV “gangs”, yapping on their cell phones while driving.
KNP, is that the Keystone National Police?
True, but they can also cause a serious traffic accident which could lead to injuries and/or deaths. And I don’t think the Japanese Police would have resorted to nets and chains if they thought Japanese motorbike gangs weren’t a serious problem.
Yup, they do need to go against those “gangs” too.
I for one think it is a good idea to do something about the biker gangs, though I’m not sure what. Coming back from Seorak-san a couple months back our tour bus was surrounded by a biker gang that proceeded to weave in and out of traffic dangerously. This continued into a long tunnel. They didn’t cause any accidents that I could see, but they did more than disrupt traffic, they endangered people’s lives.
#6,
I still find it ridiculous to call these idiots ‘biker gangs’. Where I come from, bike gangs are made up of large tattooed men on Harley’s who have a ‘1%’ badge sewn on to their jackets, not some scrawny little teenagers who wear flip flops while riding their pimped up 125cc Hyonsungs.
Instead of wasting more of the taxpayers money with their ‘campaigns’, they should change the law so that a driver isn’t fully in the wrong if he or she hits a motorcycle that cut him or her off. After a couple of kids find themselves in the hospital without any chances of getting a ‘handout’, I’m sure the ‘gangs’ would begin to disappear.
I got hit by some adjuma, whilst on my bike. Her fault she cut me off. Did I get money. No way, the Korean police will usually find some way to fault the foreigner.
Mr Police Officer, check the drivers indicators do they work? Not relevant
Mr Police Officer, check the drivers brake lights? Not relevant
Mr Police Officer, check her phone, she was yapping when she cut me off. Not Relevant.
Also all of a sudden people come out of nowhere who “saw the whole thing”, chat with the adjuma and coroborate stories.
Moral of the Story TRUST NO ONE!!
I touched on this subject a few months ago with some suggestions.
http://fenceriderkorea.blogspo.....apter.html
Looks like one of the ideas may have come to fruition but one wonders if the paintballs are visible paint or UV paint.
I have to disagree with posters who call this a non-issue. There are several issues at work here; not the least of which is disturbing the peace. The noise from these motorcycles is horrendous and at 3am they come out just when people are good and asleep. I have considered egging these guys from my apartment window but I would probably kill one of them since they don’t wear helmets or padding and drive these crazy jacked up bikes.
Another issue is the danger to others and themselves. Scores of these riders get injured and killed every year. They have been known to hurt others too.
Not that anyone really thinks about this so much here but it is also a flaunting and disrespect of the law (and not that they have particularly deserved respect) they break several laws every time they go out: speeding, wild driving, other various driving infractions, driving without licenses and registration or insurance, driving without proper protective gear, illegal and dangerous modification of a motor vehicle, evading police, evading arrest, I’m sure someone could add a few more violations to the list.
I do agree that the other aspects of lawlessness in this society need to be addressed: motorcycles on the sidewalks, crazy buses and taxis, regular and flagrant abuse of traffic regulations, etc.
independence day, I thought it was liberation day.
#7
Admittedly, the guys I was referring to might get laughed at by the Hell’s Angels, but they weren’t teenagers on scrawney little 125cc bikes. They were as close to the real deal as I’ve seen in Korea. While “scooter gangs” are an annoyance, these guys were a danger.
I think the paintball guns and CCTV cameras are a waste. Clearly what the KNP need is a cute “‘Biker Gang’ Enforcement Team” cartoon character.
They could always do like cops do back home when some guy is driving like a nutcase on his bike: block the road he’s traveling on with their patrol cars. If he doesn’t stop and crashes into them, bill him for the repairs if he survives.
We ride the way we do to get the hell away from traffic as fast as we possibly can. You have to keep the mindset that every a$$hole Kim, Lee and Pak is aiming to run your a$$ over. I don’t feel we ride too fast, it’s just that traffic is way too slow. I love riding here up in the mountains I’m just tired of it all because I can’t get anywhere fast because of the ban on bikes on the freeway.
yeah korean cops busting out paint guns and shooting at moving targets!!!
scary
I’m glad you at least posted to tell us about this “wrenchbender”. Do you guys ever put together road trips out in the countryside? That would be better than jagging around Seoul.
Wrenchbender, that’s fine and I think we can all relate. Just stop circling Grandma and Grandpa and doing wheelies. They’re spastic drivers anyway and they freak out and start swerving all over. I don’t want to end up getting old people shrapnel.
They’re NOISY (deliberately, they remove the mufflers), pollutive, dangerous, disorderly — should have been stopped long ago. Just because there are also other driving-crime problems abounding is no reason to disparage this crackdown (if it is one, and not just more phoney PR).
“Just because there are also other driving-crime problems abounding is no reason to disparage this crackdown (if it is one, and not just more phoney PR).”
I would almost be willing to bet my left nut that this is indeed phoney PR. I wish it weren’t, but it probably is. Just like all the other crackdowns here.
#20
I’ve seen a few of them in Seoul once. One gave me this shit-eating grin and then used what must have been a device attached to the exhaust to make this very deep deafening thump that resonated off the ground. It reminded my of the sound of a grenade (it sounds nothing like in the movies). It left he ears ringing for a few minutes.
Anybody else think that shooting paintballs at speeding motorcycles in highway traffic might not be terribly safe?
We keep wishing and waiting for REAL crackdowns on all sortza driving-crime problems here. Who knows, it COULD happen someday, under a better government… don’t bet your left nut that it’ll NEVER happen…
#22. Yeah, especially if they aim at their heads.
#23. I wish they’d crack down on people who speed through intersections. My car has been hit, so has my wife’s, by people speeding through intersections and I’ve had too many close calls to count.
To say the “bike gangs” (I’m going to call them “bike hooligans”) are a non-issue is to assert ignorance of the fact. I see them almost weekly. I live next to a major street and can hear them coming first. Sometimes they’re followed by the police (never chased) and seem to not change in their presence. These bike hooligans play “chicken” with oncoming traffic. Not only is that incredibly dangerous, it’s plain stupid and nerve-racking to the innocent drivers.
One night I was driving home, suddenly a car that was part of a hooligan group decided to swerve into oncoming traffic–right in front of me. It scared me so much, it looked like a crash was unavoidable. I was about to swerve to the right, possibly hitting a car, but avoiding a potential head-on collision. Luckily, the jackass swerved back into his lane, into the pack with all of his mentally challenged hooligans.
I hate those guys. I hate them more than all the bus and taxi drivers combined. Korean police should resort to Amerian tactics and use spike-strips and anything else necessary to stop and arrest them. They should confiscate their motorcycles and licenses. It’s a crime that more hasn’t been done until now.
Now if they’d just focus on enforcing the “pedestrians in the crosswalk” law.
#22 -
Dangerous? You think a speeding motorcyclist will even notice being shot with a paintball?
Granted, getting shot with a paintball can hurt… but this hurts more:
http://www.breitbart.com/artic....._article=1
“Dangerous? You think a speeding motorcyclist will even notice being shot with a paintball?”
Well, my friend dropped his bike after being stung by a wasp, so I reckon it isn’t exactly outside the realm of possibility. My only concern would be one of these assholes losing control for a moment or two and hurting somebody else.
#27 -
You’re probably right; my comment was meant to be read in conjunction with the article I linked, which sure sounds like it’s talking about a Japanese motorcycle gang (”Osada, who was on his way to Gifu Prefecture in a group of about 10 friends…”).
Hopefully the cops would have the good sense to maneuver the target away from innocent traffic before attempting to tag him with the paintball.
Thanks for information Max. I have not seen that part of their routine. It does sound very bad and so, it might be good if the police deal with them, however, paintball guns are a very bad ideal for that sounds just like the means one would use to get them to crash into someone — very dangerous indeed.
Photographs followed by arrests would do the trick since once the police sweep in an pull these guys out of bed and have TV news tape them in their underwear, it would probably have the desired effect.
“Korean police should resort to Amerian tactics and use spike-strips and anything else necessary to stop and arrest them. They should confiscate their motorcycles and licenses.”
Well, yeah…but I doubt they have licenses.
I have twice been in near-misses with these absolutely reckless helmetless drivers, and would likely have killed one of them had I not reacted quickly enough when he swerved in front of me.
Guess who would have had to pay compensation to his family?
It’s about time they did something about it–follow Ontario’s example with racing and hand out 10 million won fines. Serious jail time would be good, too.
Different police departments have dealt with the issue in different ways. In Song-nam the police did use bamboo poles and chains and the problem went away overnight and the gangs still do not come there to this day. The problem is the liberal man hater they have running the show these days.
Running red lights, driving on the sidewalk, racing, etc. would be eliminated in a matter of weeks were the government to start handing out big fines, suspending licences, and throwing people in jail for second and third offenses. Heavy penalties - ones that are actually enforced - might work.
But don’t bet on that happening. The general public here seems somewhat apathetic about traffic safety. This is the place that cancelled a law on child car seats last summer - a day or so after it took effect, no less - because there was public outrage over A) having to buy a seat, and B) pay a paltry 30 000 won fine if one was caught not using one. (Besides, why spend anything to keep your kid(s) safe when you could better use the money on a TV to watch while driving home!)
And, as anybody who has lived here for more than a few months can attest to, you can violate traffic laws in front of a Korean police officer and odds are you will not be stopped. (It isn’t like the police stations located in front of red light zones here actually enforce prostitution laws either.)