WOMAN, 69, FINALLY GOT HER LICENSE AFTER 960 TRIES
Cha Sa-soon, a South Korean grandmother who lived alone in the village of Sinchon, finally got her driver’s license in 2010 at age 69 after roughly 960 tries at the exams, the New York Post reported. She wanted to drive to keep her vegetable business running and to take her grandchildren to the zoo.
Her story is more than a decade old, but it keeps finding new audiences. It was detailed in a viral video from Asian Culture Unlocked on YouTube, and it later resurfaced on Reddit, where NDTV reported it went viral all over again.
Five days a week, three years running
Cha started taking the written driving test in April 2005. According to the New York Times, she sat for it five days a week for three consecutive years, then slowed down. The Post says she finally passed on her 961st attempt.
Guinness World Records says applicants in South Korea need at least 60 out of 100 to pass the theory test, which gives some sense of how many times she fell short.
Passing the written exam did not finish the job. Next came a driving-skills test and a road test, and the Post says she failed each of them four times in a row before passing.
The bill was not small either. She spent more than 5 million won, about $4,200, according to NBC News, as cited by the Post. Other outlets put the figure closer to $13,500.
Cha learned to drive at the Jeonbuk Driving School, and her instructors were there for the finish. “When she finally got her license, we all went out in cheers and hugged her, giving her flowers,” instructor Park Su-yeon told the Times in 2010.
“It felt like a huge burden falling off our back. We didn’t have the guts to tell her to quit because she kept showing up.”
Cha herself seemed to take the whole saga in stride. “I didn’t mind,” she said at the time. “To me, commuting every day to take the test was like going to school. I always missed school.”
She sold home-grown vegetables for a living and wanted the license to support that business. She also told the Times she hoped to take her grandchildren to the zoo.
Her persistence made her something of a local celebrity in South Korea, and her story inspired other people struggling to get their own licenses, according to the Post. It also caught the eye of Hyundai, which gave her a car worth $16,800 and cast her in a TV commercial for the company.
By the time the story went viral again in 2023, the Post said Cha was in her 80s.
Guinness World Records eventually put her in the books for the most driving theory tests taken, dating her achievement to November 6, 2009, when she was 68. The record covers theory tests only, not the practical exams that came after.
