And now some good news

The number of hit and run accidents has dropped more than 20 percent, which will excite all Ulsan Online readers, except Hal who doesn’t care about cars.

Traffic accidents here have dropped something like 60% since 1990. Considering the 8 wrecked cars I’ve seen in the last two weeks, it makes me wonder…HOW DANGEROUS WAS 1990?

Year                                   1970      1975      1980      1985      1990      1995      2000

Registered vehicles      128            194       528        1,113     3,395    8,469  12,059

(in thousands)

Crashes (in thousands) 37              58        120          147       255         249         290

Crash rate (%)                 28.9            29.9     22.7         13.2        7.5        2.9           2.4

That’s a 28% crash rate, per vehicle…in ONE year back in 1970.  The number of cars has gone up 4 times since 1990, where as the number of crashes has only slightly increased.

That means that the roads here are not only getting safer, but getting remarkably safer! Though it still doesn’t explain the 8 wrecks I’ve seen in the last two weeks.

Or Koreans have just become more adept at avoiding other Korean drivers…or everybody has just stopped reporting the accidents to the cops.