Vehicle malfunction detected 5-10 minutes before accident
Instinctively turned steering wheel to protect granddaughter
A grandmother's vehicle carrying her granddaughter was involved in another suspected sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) incident. The grandmother expressed her frustration, and the family is angry, stating that the driver must prove the car's malfunction to receive compensation.
On the 13th, JTBC's 'Hanbly (Han Moon-cheol's Blackbox Review)' aired a black box video capturing the SUA incident involving the grandmother and granddaughter on a road in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on the morning of the 16th of last month. At the time, the grandmother was on her way to take her 12-year-old granddaughter to school.
A sudden unintended acceleration incident suspected to involve a grandmother's vehicle carrying her granddaughter has occurred again. Photo by Asia Economy
In the video, the car carrying the two was not gaining much speed just before the accident.
According to the grandmother's son-in-law, the grandmother sensed something was wrong with the car 5 to 10 minutes before the accident. As the distance from the car ahead kept increasing, the grandmother said, "Why is the car acting like this?" When the granddaughter sitting in the passenger seat asked, "Why?" the grandmother replied, "No, even when I press the accelerator, the car isn't going well."
At that moment, the car suddenly roared and sped forward, crashing into a car that was stopped at a traffic light. The car, which had not been responding well to the accelerator, suddenly hit the vehicle in front and flipped over.
Instinctively, the grandmother turned the steering wheel to the left to protect her granddaughter in the passenger seat. Fortunately, the granddaughter was not seriously injured, but the grandmother underwent major surgery to have three screws inserted into her spine, and the car was severely damaged and had to be scrapped.
On the 13th, JTBC's "Hanbly (Han Moon-cheol's Blackbox Review)" aired a blackbox video capturing a sudden acceleration accident involving a grandmother and her granddaughter on a road in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on the morning of the 16th of last month. [Photo by JTBC 'Hanbly']
The son-in-law said, "The cars were stopped, so it was a situation where they were about to stop. There is no way she pressed the accelerator fully there. Even if she had pressed the accelerator, the sound wouldn't have been such a loud roar like 'wing'."
He added, "Currently, the police are not conducting an investigation." This is because insurance coverage is not applied while the cause of the sudden acceleration is being determined. The grandmother's family ultimately gave up on finding the cause of the SUA and had to settle with just insurance processing.
A lawyer stated, "Under current law, the driver must prove to receive compensation," adding, "Hanbly has repeatedly pointed out the need to change the law, and a bill has been drafted. The amendment has been proposed and is under committee review."
In a previous broadcast related to SUA incidents, the same lawyer said, "The burden of proof must change. We hope our lawmakers properly revise this law this time," and added, "We look forward to the day when we can erase words like 'suspected sudden unintended acceleration' from our memories."
Meanwhile, in December last year in Gangneung, a 68-year-old grandmother who lost her 12-year-old grandson, the late Lee Do-hyun, in a suspected SUA incident was criminally charged with death by negligence under the Special Act on Traffic Accident Processing.
The family of Do-hyun suspects sudden unintended acceleration and has filed a civil lawsuit to hold the car manufacturer accountable.
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