1 in 100 Rental Car Users at Major Tourist Attractions Drives Under the Influence
[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Wanyong] The Korea Transportation Safety Authority announced on the 27th that it conducted a pilot installation and operation of alcohol ignition interlock devices in collaboration with major rental car companies at domestic tourist destinations for three months starting from September last year.
An alcohol ignition interlock device is a device that measures alcohol consumption before starting the vehicle and restricts the vehicle ignition if the detected alcohol level exceeds a certain threshold.
Over the past three years (2019?2021), the proportion of alcohol-related accidents involving rental cars accounted for 10.5% of all rental car traffic accidents, which is 3.5 times higher than commercial vehicles (3.0%) and 1.2 times higher than non-commercial vehicles (8.5%).
Due to the nature of rental cars, which are mainly operated in tourist areas and are difficult to manage drivers, alcohol-related accidents occur very frequently. Considering these characteristics and accident types of rental cars, the Authority selected rental cars as the target for this pilot project.
During the three-month pilot operation, 40 rental cars were involved with 672 drivers participating, resulting in a total of 8,708 alcohol tests. The results showed 568 detections of alcohol consumption (6.5%) and 86 instances (1.0%) where vehicle ignition was restricted due to a blood alcohol concentration of 0.03 or higher.
Kwon Yongbok, Chairman of the Korea Transportation Safety Authority, stated, “Alcohol-related accidents continue to occur mainly in major tourist areas, and warning sounds against drunk driving are continuously heard throughout our society. We will actively utilize advanced technologies such as alcohol ignition interlock devices to change the paradigm of accident prevention and continuously promote new measures to prevent alcohol-related accidents.”
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