If there's a pedestrian crossing without a traffic light, we'll stop.
Pedestrians First Measures to Reduce Deaths in Traffic Accidents…Restriction on car repair charges in case of drinking or unlicensed accidents
In the future, drivers should stop at crosswalks without traffic lights when pedestrians try to cross crosswalks.
In addition, when a vehicle is turned right at an intersection without a traffic light, a temporary suspension will be mandatory by law, and fines or penalties will be imposed if it is not observed.
The citizens are crossing the crosswalk.(Photo = Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency, Unauthorized Reprint-Re-distribution prohibited)
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, along with the Ministry of Public Administration and Security and the National Police Agency, said it has prepared a 2021 traffic accident death reduction plan and confirmed it at a state affairs inspection and coordination meeting on the 25th.
The plan calls for reducing the number of deaths from traffic accidents to 2,000 by next year.
According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the annual death toll from traffic accidents has fallen 26.4% from 4185 in 2017 to 3081 last year due to the government's active traffic safety measures and people's participation and cooperation.
However, pedestrians account for about 40% of the total deaths between 2017 and 2020, twice the OECD average (20.5%).
As a result of aggressive implementation of traffic safety measures over the past three years (2017-2020), the number of deaths from traffic accidents has dropped sharply to 26.4 percent.
In addition, the number of traffic accident deaths per 100,000 people in Korea stood at 5.9 last year, below the OECD average of 5.6 average in 2018.
Accordingly, the government has set a goal of entering the OECD above average traffic safety country by establishing a pedestrian-first transportation system and strengthening preemptive safety in vulnerable areas such as trucks and two-wheelers.
First of all, the government will focus on establishing a transportation environment for pedestrians.
Last year, the number of pedestrian deaths dropped 16.1% from the previous year to 1,093, but the proportion of pedestrian deaths among all traffic accident deaths is still large, accounting for 35.5%.
As a result, the government will first implement the safety speed of 5030, which lowers the speed limit of vehicles in the city center, from April 17th, and conduct a crackdown through active promotion and guidance.
According to the implementation of the safety speed of 5030, the company plans to produce videos of pedestrian safety campaigns and send them to TV (public wave), SNS, and outdoor media.
In addition, the Road Traffic Act will be revised to allow drivers to keep their duty to stop temporarily when pedestrians try to cross the crosswalk on crosswalks without traffic lights, and pedestrians will be given priority on roads where sidewalks and roads are not separated.
The current Road Traffic Act requires drivers to temporarily suspend pedestrians when they are "passing" crosswalks, further strengthening the criteria for temporary suspension for pedestrian safety.
The stop-sign of crosswalks in the children's protection area shall be installed on a trial basis when the vehicle is turned right at the intersection.
In addition, the government plans to push for insurance surcharges in case of accidents at crosswalks or child protection zones and expand safety facilities such as crosswalk lighting facilities.
Starting in May this year, when the revised Road Traffic Act enforcement ordinance takes effect, illegal parking fines and penalties in children's protected areas will be raised from double to triple the normal road.
The government is also planning to drastically reduce accidents in business vehicles such as trucks and buses.
Last year, 575 business vehicles such as cargo trucks and buses died, and cargo trucks accounted for the highest portion of businesses with 32.5%. The number of business vehicles is 7 percent of the total, which is less than that of non-business vehicles, but 19.5 percent of the total are dead.
As a result, the company will first check compliance with high-speed, intercity, chartered buses, and trucks that frequently operate long distances (2 hours of driving, 15 minutes of rest) to prevent large-scale accidents caused by business vehicle deaths and drowsy driving.
It will also improve safety systems and conduct safety inspections for business vehicles, including the introduction of a one-strike out system for drunk driving for transportation workers and the inclusion of rental car operators in the safety inspection list of transportation methods.
In addition, the government will strengthen joint police, local government and industrial complex crackdowns on illegal trucking devices such as Fan Spring, and expand the authority of operators to limit loading under the Road Traffic Act.
It plans to install a vehicle departure and emergency automatic braking system in new cargoes and special cars with a gross weight exceeding 3.5 tons and expand it to less than 3.5 tons in the long term.
In addition, in order to reduce two-wheeler accidents, a comprehensive management system such as reporting, maintenance, inspection, and closure of two-wheelers with insufficient management system will be established and the license plate system will be reorganized to improve license plate visibility.
The two-wheeler delivery industry will also prepare conditions for safety education, insurance, and fair contracts for workers through the enactment of the Living Logistics Act and the introduction of a certification system for fire extinguishing goods delivery business and standard contracts. Certification companies will be managed to comply with safety requirements such as standard contracts, insurance, and education.
In addition, the government will strengthen crackdowns on illegal activities such as traffic violations at intersections using cancer camcorders and expand the public interest rate of two-wheelers.
In order to strengthen the driver's responsibility for safe driving, the regulation will be strengthened to allow the driver to devise the full amount of insurance money in the event of drunk, unlicensed, and hit-and-run accidents, and to apply drugs and drug driving to accident charges.
In addition, the government plans to limit car repair costs in the event of 12 major accidental accidents (Special Traffic Accident Handling Act) such as unlicensed, drunk driving, and intruders on the central line.
In order to manage habitual violations of the law, the punishment will be strengthened to impose additional fines according to the number of traffic violations, and the introduction of drunk driving prevention devices will also be considered for habitual drunk drivers.
Along with the improvement of the system, it will also push for reducing traffic accidents through infrastructure improvement.
It will also expand driver rest facilities by intensively improving roads (160 national roads and 373 local roads) and installing 17 new sleep shelters (7 highways and 10 national roads) for areas where accidents are frequent and sudden curves.
In order to prevent large-scale tunnel accidents, the company plans to reinforce disaster prevention facilities such as smoke-free facilities and entry-blocking facilities (11 places of grade 3) and test-build and operate safety belt-free equipment on highways from October this year.
In addition, in addition to the National Police Agency and local governments, the road management office will establish a basis for installing speeding cameras, and will utilize active administrative tasks and install them first for the urgent section.
In addition, in order to spread the human-first traffic culture, it plans to actively promote pedestrian safety through various channels such as TV, radio, and new media, such as stopping and safety speed 5030 once a person is seen as a key message.
In order to actively participate and spread the traffic safety culture, it will utilize broadcasters, etc., produce promotional videos, and participate in campaigns.
In addition, the government will periodically check the progress through the National Policy Review and Inspection Council and activate the regional traffic safety consultative body to strengthen cooperation among related agencies at regional units.
The government will conduct a joint inspection of related ministries of local governments and regularly disclose statistics on traffic accident deaths by local governments.
A government official said, "Our country plans to continue to make efforts to become a transportation safety country at the level of OECD advanced countries," and added, "For this, we need the public's interest and participation in pedestrian-first and people-first transportation culture." "Please participate actively in the spread of a safety culture that cares about the other person."
Inquiries: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Traffic Safety Policy Division / National Life Protection Promotion Team / Ministry of Public Administration and Security Safety / National Police Agency Traffic Safety Division 044-201-3863 / 200-2559 / 205-4219 / 02-3150-2152
[Source] South Korea Policy Briefing (www.Korea)kr)