6. Free purchase of a car
There is no official data on the number of cars produced in the DPRK. According to various estimates, production volumes are 40-50 thousand pieces per year. Only a few North Korean citizens own a car, it costs fabulous money. You can receive a car as a gift from the Leader, use a vehicle registered to an enterprise, or receive a gift from relatives living abroad, this is not prohibited. More precisely, a rich relative will have to give two cars at once. One of them a citizen of the DPRK can keep for himself, the other will be taken by the government. And getting a driver’s license takes about a year. First, you need to get a recommendation for a referral to study, then go through a long training at a driving school, and the classes take the whole day. The future driver must not only be able to drive a car, but also repair it in case of a breakdown. Another interesting fact: a woman in North Korea can be a traffic controller, but she cannot drive a car herself. At one time, women were even forbidden to ride bicycles around the city. This restriction has now been lifted. But North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is rumored to have 800 cars, including Mercedes-Benz S-Class limousines in W220 and W221 bodies.
