Highway Accidents Reduced to Half in 6 Years

It is reported that highway accidents have reduced to half in 6 years.

According to Korea Highway Corporation (KHC) on the 4th, there had been 3,638 cases of highway traffic accidents nationwide in last year, which is 48.3 Per Cent less than 1995 (7,049 cases).

The number of deaths during the period reduced 52.2 Per Cent from 954 to 456, and the number of the injured also reduced 59.3 Per Cent from 5,738 to 2,331.

In terms of causes for accidents in last year, the order followed sleep-driving (21.4%), not gazing ahead steadily (19.7%), and over-speeding (18.1%). Therefore, the cases of drivers’ faults marked 82.6 Per Cent of the entire cases of accident.

Cases of automobile errors, which included tire-damage (7.9%) and mechanical device defection (4.3%), also reached 12.6 Per Cent.

In terms of time range, 16.1 Per Cent of accidents occurred during 5 – 8 a.m., about which KHC requested special attention while driving at morning time.

A KHC authority said, “The reason for such remarkable decrease in highway traffic accidents is that certain highway weak points were chosen for special management since 1994, and besides, special safety measures were taken against new highways in cooperation with external experts.”

Jin-Hup Song jinhup@donga.com