Court: "No other way but to drive at the time to prevent the accident"
The police are conducting a drunk driving crackdown. The photo is unrelated to specific expressions in the article. Photo by Yonhap News.
[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyun-joo] A man in his 40s who drove under the influence was acquitted again in the appellate court following the first trial. The court showed leniency on the grounds that he took the wheel to move a vehicle parked in a high-risk traffic accident area.
On the 10th, the Ulsan District Court Criminal Appeal Division 1 (Presiding Judge Kim Hyun-jin) announced that it had acquitted Mr. A, who was charged with violating the Road Traffic Act.
Mr. A was charged with driving approximately 400 meters on a road in Dong-gu, Ulsan, in September 2020 with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.187%.
At the time, Mr. A was using a designated driver service to return home when he got into an argument with the designated driver. After the designated driver stopped the vehicle and got out, Mr. A himself took the wheel and was caught while parking the car. During the trial, Mr. A argued that the place where the designated driver stopped the car was near the right-turn lane of a T-shaped three-way intersection, which posed a high risk of obstructing traffic and causing a collision, so he had no choice but to drive. He explained that since it was late at night and the area was a no-parking zone, simply turning on the hazard lights and setting up a warning triangle was insufficient to prevent traffic accidents.
Mr. A also claimed that even if he had reported to the police or called an acquaintance to move the vehicle, it would have taken considerable time to arrive at the scene, so he only moved the vehicle to the nearest place without traffic first.
The first trial court acquitted Mr. A, ruling that his actions constituted "emergency necessity." The designated driver had stopped the car in the third lane of a three-lane one-way road without a shoulder, at a corner where other drivers could not have anticipated a parked vehicle. The court also took into account that Mr. A parked the car immediately in a safe place rather than heading home.
The prosecution appealed, arguing that there were alternatives such as calling another designated driver, so the crime should be recognized.
However, the appellate court stated, "Considering the distance and route of the movement, moving the vehicle quickly to a safe place was the most appropriate method," and "the risk of traffic accidents during the drive to that place was not high," thus upholding the original court's judgment as valid.
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