A 14-year-old girl drove a car over 100 kilometers without a driver’s license and overturned the car at a roundabout, injuring herself and three passengers, the Gangwon Hwacheon Police said Thursday.

According to police, four teenage girls, including the driver surnamed Song and her older sister, were traveling from Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, to Hwacheon, Gangwon Province, where Song’s maternal grandmother lives.


The vehicle belonged to Song’s father and was taken out without permission. The legal minimum driving age for cars in South Korea is 18.

The accident occurred around 5 a.m. on Wednesday at an intersection in Gancheok-ri, Gandong-myeon of Hwacheon County. 


Police tentatively concluded Song failed to notice the roundabout while going downhill and crashed twice through the center block.

The girls are expected to require two to three weeks of hospitalization to recover from the accident.

By Lim Jeong-yeo (kaylalim@heraldcorp.com).