Daejeon Traffic Accident Deaths 'Decrease for 3 Consecutive Years'... City Says "Effect of Traffic Accident Prevention Policies"

Night lighting facilities installed at intersections in the Daejeon area brightly illuminate the traffic sections. Provided by Daejeon City

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] The number of traffic accident fatalities in the Daejeon area has decreased for three consecutive years. This is analyzed as a visible effect of Daejeon City's policy efforts to prevent traffic accidents.

According to Daejeon City and the Daejeon Metropolitan Police Agency on the 4th, 6,969 traffic accidents occurred in Daejeon last year, resulting in 57 deaths.

However, the number of traffic accident fatalities, which was 85 in 2018, steadily decreased to 73 in 2019, 62 in 2020, and 57 last year. Daejeon is the only city where traffic accident fatalities have continuously decreased for the past three years.

In particular, the fatality reduction rate compared to 2018 was recorded at 33%, and compared to 2020, last year saw 190 fewer traffic accidents (2.7%) and 5 fewer deaths (8.1%) in the region.

The continuous decrease in traffic accidents and fatalities in the region is analyzed to have been positively influenced by the city's extensive traffic accident prevention policies.

In fact, around 2018, the city significantly expanded traffic safety facilities such as nighttime lighting, pedestrian fences to prevent jaywalking, and improvements in school zones in high-accident areas based on statistics by accident type and time of day.

As a result, since 2018, there have been no child fatalities in school zones, and pedestrian and nighttime accidents have also significantly decreased.

For example, last year, the number of nighttime traffic accident fatalities was 25 (43% of the total 57), which is 11 fewer (30.5% decrease) than the previous year. The city explains that this effect was achieved through the nighttime illumination improvement project expanded since 2020, including intersection lighting towers, concentrated crosswalk lighting, and underpass lighting.

Daejeon also ranked 3rd among 17 cities and provinces in the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s ‘2021 Traffic Culture Index Survey’ conducted last January.

Previously, from 2019 to last year, the city implemented 24 projects in four areas of traffic accident prevention, investing 107.8 billion KRW in budget, and plans to invest an additional 52.9 billion KRW this year.

Han Seon-hee, Director of the Transportation and Construction Bureau of Daejeon City, said, “This year, the city will focus on minimizing traffic accident fatalities with the vision of ‘Daejeon, a Model City for Traffic Safety.’ To this end, the city has independently established the ‘4th Basic Traffic Safety Plan’ to ensure that traffic safety measures in six major sectors are implemented without fail.”