“More constructions, more physical separations aren’t the right solution to safe the live of pedestrians and cyclists. The solution isn’t easy and a comprehensive approach is necessary.”

I distinctly remember from living in Seoul that the following were fairly common:

A) Pedestrians running across the middle of wide busy streets. This could be stopped with high fences in the middle. Expensive but ultimately worth the lives saved.

B) Cars playing chicken with pedestrians and cyclists. Maybe fully separated infrastructure is the right solution. Most alley type streets (the majority of streets in Seoul) have no sidewalks. This is not an easy solution, because these streets are already extremely narrow, but its wrong to dismiss an infrastructure solution out of hand.

Look at the Netherlands; they have physically separated cycle lanes, and far far lower cycling deaths than anywhere in USA.

Especially self-important people driving fancy cars tend to treat pedestrian crosswalks as their own right of way.

I’ve always felt that pedestrians are complicit in the problem, but usually through no fault of their own. With vehicles often parked on sidewalks, or with scooters driving on sidewalks, pedestrians are forced to walk on the streets. Also, many older neighborhoods don’t even have sidewalks. So more spaces for parking and/or better enforcement of parking regulations could help. As would building more and better (wider) sidewalks.

Having said that, even in neighborhoods that DO have sidewalks (and ones that are unobstructed), people seemingly CHOOSE to walk on the street. That’s something that I just can’t understand. What’s worse, they are often wearing headphones, talking on phones, or other activities that make them oblivious to oncoming traffic. So I think that people need to be taught how to be good pedestrians and by that i mean paying attention to one’s surroundings and being on the lookout for vehicles. Also, police could enforce jaywalking regulations. If there is a perfectly good and unobstructed sidewalk, but you chose to walk on the road, why shouldn’t you get a ticket?

Something that i think would help immensly is drivers’ education in schools. As important as the automotive industry is to Korea’s economy, I’ve always been amazed that it’s not part of the school curriculum (or if it is, I’ve never heard about it). Teach children in schools the basic rules of the road, how to be a polite driver, how to be a polite pedestrian, what the various traffic signs and lane markings mean, what they should do when emergency vehicles approach, etc. Who knows, if children knew the rules of the roads, they might even begins to start questioning their parents for the way that they drive.

School-based drivers’ education could also apply to bicycles. I can remember growing up in Canada and having ‘bicycle rodeos’ at school, where we had to have our bikes inspected, display our riding skills, and complete a theoretical test of safety rules and regulations. The local police would come and talk to us about saftey and responsiblity. There were prizes. It was a fun, festival, and educational event.

Finally, regarding the statistics quoted in this article, I wonder if scooter riders, as most are unlicensed, have been recorded as pedestrian deaths. Or if scooter riders are in the ‘other’ category. Also, does ‘victim’ in these stats mean ‘death’ or does it mean ‘incident’? For example, as a pedestrian, I’ve been struck by a car about four times in my life (twice in Canada and twice in Korea), but all incidents were (thankfully) harmless. So yes, I’ve been a ‘victim’ of a vehicle/pedestrian collision, but clearly not a fatal one.

Overall, I’m for raising awareness rather than lowering speed limits.

I think the root of a lot of this is cultural. I have noticed a few tjings over the years.

People feel more anonymous when inside a car. In Korea we see a sudden change of social etiquette when people think others can’t see their faces.

The other point was brought up at a Seoul town hall meeting and received a round of enthusiastic applause–which means it was properly ignored. Drivers think they are superior to pedestrians. It’s perverse. There is no concept that when one is controlling a dangerous vehicle, more vulnerable entities take priority.

There is also a childishly selfish streak where drivers think they are more important than others, which justifies their bballi bballi carelessness and breaking traffic laws. Because, of course, rules are for other people.

You know, just some basic enforcement of existing laws combined with elementary and up education with more stringent licensing requirements wpuld reduce all this dramatically.

Assuming that the survey is accurate, it doesn’t seem all that surprising that women would be reluctant to ride the night bus. While the actual risk of assault or harassment must be quite low, the perceived risk might be significant enough to create discomfort. There might also be a feeling of stigmatization, should a woman find herself on a night bus full of men. The taxi – to all but hardcore penny-pinchers – might then seem to be the best option.

As for the large proportion of 대리운전기사… Regular night shift workers (convenience store workers, nurses, bar tenders, etc.) probably tend to go to work while the regular bus and train lines are still operating, and might get off of work only once the regular lines start operating again. At most, they’ll ride the night bus once a day. On the other hand, 대리운전기사 start their work (and start riding the bus) late at night, and make several one-way trips on the night bus every day – hence their over-representation (unless the survey counted each only once a day, which I doubt).

In a city as large as Seoul, with as many buses as Seoul, with as much of a demand for public transportation as Seoul, night buses should be considered essential. A city that truly never sleeps provides greater opportunity and freedom to its citizens and visitors.

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“We have some problems in education. Not only learning knowledge, but we have to learn to respect our people. But in our education system that portion has not been emphasized,” said Lee.

“Changing human behavior is a long-term project, but our presidential period is only five years so nobody is concerned with (creating an) education system to change people’s behavior.”

The public’s poor adherence to the rules of the road also means that effective road features commonly used in other countries have little use in Korea, according to Lee.

“The stop sign is not popular in Korea. But the stop sign or yield sign is very popular in Europe and the United States… If people obey the rules well, then stop signs or yield signs are very effective in terms of an operational point of view and safety point of view.”

While driver behavior may be one of the main culprits in the country’s poor road safety record, experts also indentify deficiencies in planning and road maintenance, as well as other factors, as contributory causes.

“We have many blind intersections, especially in residential areas,” said Kho Seung-young, a professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Seoul National University, adding that greater capital investment is needed to address road hazards.

“There is no control of intersections in residential areas. So there are many accidents between cars and pedestrians compared to other countries.”

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Looking at the donut chart, car deaths in Korea do not seem to be of greatest concern, especially given that so few backseat riders wear seat belts (a problem that should be relatively easily rectifiable) and that overall deaths have been declining dramatically over the last decade. It is pedestrian deaths that are most troubling.

Reducing the speed limit should help, but if most pedestrian deaths are due to dangerous driving (speeding included) in cramped urban neighborhoods outside the watch of enforcement, such an across-the-board move could prove to be a hindrance without benefit. It might be better to opt for some of the steps recommended above, including stop signs, blind intersection safety upgrades, and education programs teaching respect for fellow citizens (however difficult that may be to successfully implement).

Given the similarities between Korea and Japan, geographically and otherwise, perhaps Korea should look to Japan rather than Germany for inspiration on how to tackle this specific problem. Japan has one of the lowest traffic-related death rates in the world, even though it features incredibly dense urban development.

Finally, I would think that examining in detail a representative sample of accidents leading to traffic-related deaths in Korea would be necessary for the success of any serious effort to surmise the best possible methods for tackling the Korean road safety problem.