On Nov. 5, the General Insurance Association of Korea(GIAK)’s Social Contribution Council announced that it signed a business agreement with the National Police Agency and the Korea Transportation Safety Authority to support elderly drivers’ safe driving.
The Social Contribution Council promotes the practice of social responsibilities and the social contribution activities of non-life insurance companies in Korea. It is composed of representatives of the GIAK and 19 non-life insurance companies.
The signing ceremony was attended by Lee Byung-rhae, chairman of the GIAK, Cho Ji-ho, chief of the National Police Agency, and Jeong Yong-sik, chairman of the Korea Transportation Safety Authority.
The agreement is aimed at distributing pedal mishap prevention devices, which was is an advanced safety device, to elderly drivers who are unable to give up driving for a living so that they will be able to drive safely without the risk of causing accidents due to pedal mistakes.
Under the agreement, the Social Contribution Council will provide budget support for the distribution of advanced safety devices, the National Police Agency will select pilot areas to expand the distribution of the advanced safety devices and prepare directions for government policy collaboration, and the Korea Transportation Safety Authority will recruit participants and analyze the effectiveness of the advanced safety devices.
The project will be carried out through the Hope Volunteer Corps for the Support of Traffic Accident Victims.
The volunteer organization is a non-profit group established to prevent traffic accidents and expand support for traffic accident victims.
It conducts care services and various sponsorship programs for families who suffered from traffic accidents.
“We hope that this agreement will spread social interest in traffic safety for the elderly, and we will continue to do our best in various public service projects to protect the elderly and other vulnerable road users,” said Lee Byung-rae, chairman of the Social Contribution Council.
“As a government agency, we will spare no effort to support policies for vulnerable groups so that traffic accident prevention for elderly drivers and policies to ensure their right to mobility can be fully harmonized,” said Cho Ji-ho, head of the National Police Agency.
“As a public institution responsible for mobility safety, we will continue to cooperate with one another to institutionalize advanced safety devices to prevent traffic accidents for elderly drivers through this agreement,” said Jeong Yong-sik, chairman of the Korea Transportation Safety Authority.
Supporting Installation of Protective Fences to Prevent Child Traffic Accidents
On Oct. 27, the GIAK announced that it held a ceremony to complete the installation of protective fences to prevent traffic accidents for children with the ChildFund Korea.
The completion ceremony was held at Uam Elementary School in Busan. On hand were Lee Byung-rhae, chairman of the GIAK, Lee Soo-kyung, vice chairman of the Child Fund Korea and Park Soo-young, a member of the People Power Party, all of whom pledged to ask the National Assembly, the central government, and local governments to pump up their efforts for child traffic safety.
In 2023, a series of child traffic fatalities occurred in school zones, raising the need to strengthen safety facilities.
On July 31, 2024, an amendment to the Road Traffic Act came into effect, making it mandatory to install protective fences in school zones.
In order to stabilize the system and improve its effectiveness, this protective fence installation project was promoted in cooperation with the private sector and the local government.
Roads around Uam Elementary School in Busan which were selected as a project target, are trunk roads around port facilities.
The frequent traffic of large container trucks fueled a need to build a high-strength safety facility for children’s safe commutes.
Through this project, the existing pedestrian fences were replaced by stronger anti-vehicle safety fences to boost the safety of children in the school zone.
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