Teen Unlicensed Driving Rarely Eradicated
Driving Parents' Cars Secretly... Even Illegal Rentals
Brokers Renting Cars via Apps Too
[Asia Economy Reporter Song Seung-yoon] Accidents caused by unlicensed driving among teenagers are occurring one after another.
According to the police and fire department on the 7th, at around 1:10 a.m. the previous day, a passenger car driven by A (18) crashed into a signpost pillar parked on the roadside at an intersection in Jocheon-eup, Jeju City. At the time, there were three other students in the car besides A. A was taken to the hospital but ultimately passed away, and the three friends also sustained minor injuries and received treatment at the hospital. The vehicle is known to be owned by A’s parents.
On Chuseok day last month, on the 1st, there was also an incident in Hwasun-gun, Jeollanam-do, where a high school student driving a rental car without a license hit and killed a woman in her 20s crossing a crosswalk. At that time, four high school students, including the driver B (18), were in the car. After causing the accident, they fled about 20 km to Gwangju without providing any aid and later surrendered to the police. B and others were able to rent the car using another person's account through a car-sharing service application (app). A broker was also involved in this process.
In September this year, in Mokpo, Jeollanam-do, high school student C (17) rented a car with a stolen driver's license and caused an accident in which two students in the rental car and one occupant of the other vehicle died, totaling three fatalities.
According to data submitted by the Korea Road Traffic Authority to Park Jae-ho, a member of the National Assembly’s Public Administration and Security Committee from the Democratic Party, there were a total of 3,301 unlicensed traffic accidents caused by teenagers from 2015 to 2019. As a result, 91 people died and 4,849 were injured.
In particular, many teenagers cause such accidents using rental cars. During the same period, there were 598 unlicensed traffic accidents involving rental cars caused by teenagers. Considering that the total number of unlicensed rental car traffic accidents during this period was 1,605, about 3 to 4 out of every 10 accidents were caused by teenagers. In the past, teenagers would directly rent vehicles from companies by using someone else’s ID, but now the main method is using car-sharing apps.
As a result, brokers who specialize in renting vehicles to teenagers are also thriving. They pay licensed individuals to rent car-sharing service accounts and then rent those accounts to teenagers. In this process, it is common to charge two to three times the normal rental price. These illegal rental operators hand over vehicles to teenagers by remote control or by giving them phones with the app installed once the money is deposited. Transactions mainly take place through social networking services (SNS) or messengers.
Given this situation, the government has also taken steps to prepare countermeasures. On the 15th of last month, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced a legislative notice for the revision of the 'Passenger Transport Service Act Enforcement Decree.' The revision includes a new punishment clause that allows for penalizing both those who lend and those who borrow rental car names. Violations can result in imprisonment of up to one year or fines of up to 10 million won. The fine for businesses renting out rental cars without verifying licenses will also be increased tenfold from the current 200,000 to 300,000 won range. The revised enforcement decree is scheduled to be amended and promulgated in January next year after regulatory review and legal inspection procedures.
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