I’ve in one of my
blogs mentioned the tremendously heavy traffic and strange driving style here in Korea but especially in
Seoul! Driving here is not pleasant and the attitude of the Korean drivers is
at the least said, inappropriate!
Pedestrians and
all type of bikers are in most danger.
According to the World Health Organization, road traffic injuries caused
an estimated 1.24 million deaths worldwide in 2010. Half of all road traffic
deaths are among pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, and adults aged
between 15 and 44 years account for 59% of deaths. 3 out of 4 deaths are among
men, 92% occurred in low and middle income countries, with South-East Asia and
Africa having the highest rates.
Our dear friend Jaeyeon
Lee was last Monday in a car accident, a truck drove into her from behind,
pushed her of the road and the car finally landed in a rice field. Since then
she’s in the hospital, subjected to many tests. Thanks to good fortune and a
safe car (now totally wrecked), she survived but she has severe pain in all her
joints and neck and she is of cause shook up. Her convalence time is uncertain.
Sung Nam Hospital entrance.
Jaeyeon's new "apartment"
But she keeps on smiling and being strong! Get well soon! Your SM
I'm not so very happy!!!
That accidents
happen we’re all aware off but that the high-tech and well developed country of
South Korea is still as high as it is, is not acceptable. I think it mainly
depends on the bad driving attitude, overtaking left and right, waving
massively on the highway in order to gain a couple of meters in the long queues,
taxi drivers watching TV while driving …….. and so forth!
Korea Times
Korea ranked third out of the
34 OECD countries in terms of the frequency of car accidents.
By Yun Suh-young
The rate of traffic accidents
among the elderly was especially high; five times the OECD average and higher for
children’s accidents which ranked number one among the OECD countries.
__________________________________________________
Seoul – A truck
driver killed three cyclists while watching television!
A truck driver who killed three South Korean professional cyclists in a
road accident has admitted he was watching a television mounted on his
dashboard at the time, police said.
The police found the TV switched on when they and other rescuers arrived
at the scene of the accident and the 66-year old trucker has been detained on
suspicion of dangerous driving.
“Although the law bans drivers
from watching television while driving, there isn’t any specific penalty when caught,
so we can’t do anything about it,” a police spokesman told AFP. Offenders can
however be charged with another road traffic offence if they cause an accident
while watching the screen.
Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) TVs are not unusual in vehicles in
tech-savvy South Korea. They are programmed to cut out when the vehicle is in
motion but can be configured to stay on.
Some taxi drivers in Seoul install the televisions and glance at them
while driving, apparently unhindered by the police.
A total of 5.505 people were killed in 226.878 car accidents in South
Korea in 2010!
