Over the past five months, police have carried out rigorous enforcement actions against illegal driving, resulting in the identification of roughly 130,000 instances of such violations. The National Police Agency reported on the 3rd that they implemented strict measures targeting the “Five Major Illegal Driving Offenses,” leading to a total of 135,574 cases being addressed between July and the end of November. Of these, cutting in line was the most common offense with 107,411 cases, followed by illegal U-turns at 13,669, tailgating at 10,693, violations of highway exclusive lanes at 3,732, and non-emergency ambulance traffic law violations at 69 cases.
Furthermore, 833 intersections where traffic law violations often take place were chosen, and the traffic conditions were enhanced by introducing new no-parking areas and modifying U-turn lane markings.
It was discovered that residents are also noticing the impact of the enforcement actions. A public opinion survey carried out by the National Police Agency on the 19th of last month, which focused on highway drivers, revealed that 1,542 out of 1,968 drivers (78.4%) believed the crackdowns on bus-only lanes on highways were effective.
In the meantime, the police intend to gradually implement unmanned enforcement tools to identify illegal driving behaviors like following too closely. From this month until February next year, they will test an “unmanned traffic enforcement device for detecting tailgating at intersections” at Gukgiwon Intersection in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Nevertheless, during the testing phase, no penalties will be issued even if infractions are identified.
Next year, they intend to deploy tailgating unmanned enforcement systems at 10 intersections that often experience traffic jams and begin rolling them out across the country from 2027. They are also working on advancing unmanned enforcement technology to address issues like lane cutting and illegal U-turns.
A representative from the National Police Agency mentioned, “We intend to maintain strict enforcement against unlawful driving until the end of this year.”
