From the 17th of next month, if you run 60km/h from the city center, the’ticket’ will fly.

From the 17th of next month, it will not be possible to run more than 50 km/h in downtown areas across the country. In addition, a revision of the law is being promoted with the content that vehicles are temporarily stopped even if pedestrians try to cross the crosswalk at crosswalks without traffic lights.

On the 25th, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, and the National Police Agency jointly announced measures to reduce deaths in traffic accidents. The government’s goal is to reduce the death toll of 3,000 traffic accidents a year to 2,000 by next year.

According to this, from April 17th, the vehicle speed limit in urban areas across the country will be lowered from 60km/h to 50km/h. The’Safety Speed ​​5030′, which has been piloted since 2018, is being fully implemented nationwide. The safety speed 5030 is about reducing the speed limit in the city center to 50 km/h, and for residential areas to 30 km/h.

“Even if the speed limit is lowered, travel time increases by 5%, but there is an analysis result that traffic fatal accidents decrease by 8~24%,” said Kang Seong-seop, head of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport.

In addition, protection measures for pedestrians who try to cross a pedestrian crossing without a signal, which have high risk of pedestrian accidents, will be strengthened. Under the current road traffic law, drivers are obligated to temporarily stop only when pedestrians are passing through a crosswalk.

In the first half of the year, the government revised the Road Traffic Act and decided to impose a temporary suspension obligation even when pedestrians try to cross a pedestrian crossing. In fact, it means that the vehicle must stop once a pedestrian is standing in front of the crosswalk to cross the street.

Earlier, at the end of last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the driver is responsible for an accident without a temporary stop at a crosswalk without a traffic light. If this is violated, a penalty of 40,000 won will be imposed on a passenger car basis. An official from the National Police Agency said, “After the revision of the law, detailed crackdown standards will also be established.”

Countermeasures are also implemented to reduce accidents for business vehicles such as trucks and buses. First of all, in order to ensure the proper rest time for truck drivers, the’existing 4 hours driving 30 minutes rest’ will be changed to ‘2 hours driving 15 minutes driving’. The crackdown on illegal tuning and modification of trucks is strengthened.

The One Strike Out system is implemented in which passengers engaged in transportation such as buses and taxis cancel their qualifications as a transportation worker if they are caught driving under the influence of a license at least once. The government is also planning to amend the relevant laws to revoke the qualification as a transportation worker even at the level of suspension of the license.

In order to reduce the number of motorcycle accidents, the number plate system for motorcycles will be reorganized to increase the visibility of the license plate. This is because the easier identification of the license plate makes it easier to crack down on violations of the law.

Transportation reporter Gap-saeng Kang [email protected]