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.