Kwon Byung-yoon, president of the Korea Transportation Safety Authority. (Photo: TS)

Last year, Korea’s traffic culture index rose by 2.21 points to 77.46 points. The central and local governments’ efforts have been steadily elevating the level of Korean people’s awareness of transportation culture. In particular, a steady drop in the number of deaths in traffic accidents in Korea is a positive sign.

In 2019, Korea’s transportation culture index stood at 77.46 points, up 2.21 points from the previous year, according to the Korea Transport Safety Authority, or TS.

The traffic culture index is based on driving behavior (55 points), walking behavior (20 points) and traffic safety (25 points). In order to calculate the transportation culture index, the Korea Transportation Safety Authority divided municipalities into four groups.

Korea recorded 45.59 points out of 55 points in the driving behavior area. The nation posted an increase of 0.17 percentage points in the crosswalk stop line compliance rate, an increase of 1.86 percentage points in the turn signal use rate and an increase of 0.35 percentage points in the rider helmet wearing rate compared to the previous year. Korea scored 16.71 of 20 points in the pedestrian behavior area.

Its jaywalking rate fell by 5.07 percentage points to 32.20 percent.

The traffic safety area scored 15.16 out of 25 points, posting a year-on-year increase of 2.21 points as local governments’ traffic safety efforts rose by 1.55 points, taking the lion’s share.

“If this trend holds, Korea will be able to put an end to being called a backward country in traffic safety by overtaking advanced countries of the OECD such as the United States, Portugal, New Zealand and Poland,” a TS official said. In terms of economic value, damage from traffic accidents in Korea equaled about 40.4 trillion won. It costs about 21 trillion won in physical loss and 19 trillion won in mental distress.

“To reduce the number of traffic accident deaths to the level of OECD member countries, it is essential to reduce the number of accidents that claim pedestrians’ lives," a TS official said.

It is necessary to make an improvement to traffic culture of two sides - pedestrians and drivers - along with the continuous expansion of pedestrian safety facilities and advanced safety devices.”

The TS is also working to reduce the number of car defects. Last year, BMW accidents increased citizens’ interest in vehicle defects. The TS set up a related information sharing system for a proactive defect investigation. It clarified recall requirements so that defects are automatically investigated when certain requirements are met.

This year, through an analysis of event data recorder (EDR) data by types of accidents, the TS will discover vehicle defects by developing a defect analysis method on the malfunction of braking systems and airbags, among others.

The TS recently developed the Korean Advanced Vehicle Diagnostic Information System (KADIS).

The KADIS is a system that can check whether or not advanced safety devices in work properly vehicles including electric vehicles and hydrogen vehicles.

In the case of the railway and aviation sectors, where one small accident can lead to a major disaster, the TS has been stepping up its efforts in order to enhance safety management.

Its railway safety management has three stages. Risk factors are eliminated through a railroad traffic safety inspection before railway construction.

Then, just before the opening of a new railway, a comprehensive railway operation is conducted to check the suitability and stability of the new railway.

After the opening of the railway, the railroad safety management system approval system examines whether the operator has an adequate safety management system.

In the aviation sector, the TS runs the Aviation Safety Autonomous Reporting System and the Aviation Security Autonomous Reporting System.

Through these, aviation sector risk factors are found in advance and improvement measures are devised and quickly spread to related agencies.