On the 23rd, the Korea Expressway Transportation Corporation (Chairman Migrant) jointly conducted a “Children’s Traffic Safety Campaign” with the National Police Agency and Seoul Gwangjin Elementary School in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul.
The campaign was designed to create a safer children’s sanctuary by establishing a culture of safety awareness and consideration for both drivers and pedestrians while raising awareness of children’s traffic accidents.
The corporation selected six child protection zones nationwide where child traffic accidents or deaths occurred frequently in 2020, and delivered 2,500 “safety umbrellas” to help children walk safely on cloudy or rainy days for children attending nearby elementary schools and kindergartens.
According to the corporation, 2,444 child traffic accidents occurred in child protection zones for five years from 2016 to 2020, killing 28 people and injuring 2,566.
Looking at the age of casualties, the proportion of those aged 7 to 9 who belong to the lower grades of elementary school accounted for 50.93%, accounting for half. The percentage of casualties between the ages of 10 and 12 was 27.83% and 21.24% between the ages of 1 and 6.
By time zone, traffic accidents were the most common between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. The corporation emphasized the importance of pedestrian safety education in schools and homes, saying that there were many elementary school students pedestrians at the time of school and after-school activities.
Meanwhile, in January, a revision to the Road Traffic Act was promulgated that mandates drivers to pause in front of the “signal-free crosswalk” installed in the child protection zone to strengthen traffic safety in the child protection zone.
This takes into account the characteristics of children jumping in a hurry without looking around when they see a crosswalk, and will take effect on July 12.
In order to prevent children’s traffic accidents, both pedestrians and drivers must have a sense of safety based on concessions and consideration, said the director of the Migrant Road Traffic Authority.