Bullet Taxi?

There are lots of things that I had no experience with before I came to Seoul. This is but one of them.

As my family is in the US, I live in Seoul by myself. That means that I can work very late with few worries. Anyway, one late night (about 1AM) I finished up work and decided to take a taxi home. At that time I lived in CheongDam dong (in Kangnam for those of you who know Seoul) and was coming from Anyang. Normally that trip, about 25 km, takes about 40~45 minutes in good traffic. Granted, it was after midnight so the traffic was fairly light, but this night the journey took only about 20 minutes. Why you ask? Bullet taxi!!!

The experience was like riding with a stock car driver at the wheel. Pedal to the metal with the speedo pinging off of the max then, without warning, hard on the brakes until our speed was less than 80 kph. So why the on/off the gas and brakes? It wasn't like we were making left turns (as the stock car drivers do). Instead, we were slowing down for traffic cameras. Yes, the GPS system was telling the driver where the next camera was. And sure enough, just a few hundred meters before the camera the driver got on the brakes hard. A few seconds later the GPS system told the driver he successfully negotiated the camera and back on the gas it was. Don't get me wrong... I really enjoy riding with a driver who doesn't mind being aggressive (actually, I enjoy powerful cars, the more the better) so I really enjoyed the ride. However the fun part came at the traffic lights. We slowed to maybe 50 kph, but the driver had no intention of stopping for any red light unless absolutely necessary. The ped x-ings rated a mere 80 kph.

Anyway, the next day I described the experience to one of my colleagues at work and I was told that I had taken a "Bullet Taxi". Hmm... can you pay extra for that?