Denying Drunk Driving by Exiting the Passenger Seat? ... Why It’s All Useless

National Police Agency Releases Related Video on Official YouTube Channel

An incident occurred where a driver who lied by getting out to the passenger seat to hide the fact that they were driving under the influence was caught due to a nearby security camera.

A driver who was driving under the influence is getting out of the driver's seat and moving to the passenger seat. Photo by the National Police Agency YouTube

On the 17th, the National Police Agency posted a video titled "You thought we wouldn't know if you got out to the passenger seat? We saw everything" on their official YouTube channel. The video shows a situation in an alley in Seoul around 2 a.m. on the 29th of last month.

At that time, a car was driving through the alley, hitting parked vehicles and motorcycles but just passing by. A citizen who witnessed this reported to the police, suspecting drunk driving. The video shows that the drunk driving vehicle attempted to flee the scene, even dropping its bumper, which was hanging loosely due to the collision, but failed to escape due to the police's swift response.

The driver, who was intoxicated, got out to the passenger seat and ran into a nearby building to deny the fact that they were driving. After being caught by the police, the driver claimed they had not been driving.

A driver who was driving under the influence is getting out of the driver's seat and moving to the passenger seat. Police Agency YouTube

However, the police, suspicious because there was no driver in the vehicle, checked footage from nearby security cameras through the control center and found that the driver had gotten out of the driver's seat and moved to the passenger seat. Only after the lie was exposed did the driver admit to drunk driving. The driver's blood alcohol concentration was found to be at the license cancellation level, and they were ultimately arrested for violating the Road Traffic Act.

The number of drunk driving detections in 2023 was 131,050 cases, returning to pre-COVID-19 (2019, 130,772 cases) levels after a decrease during the pandemic (2020?2021). Notably, the average recidivism rate for drunk driving over the past five years (2019?2023) reached 43.6%. In 2023, there were 13,042 drunk driving traffic accidents, resulting in 159 deaths and 20,628 injuries. This represents about a 24% decrease compared to 17,747 cases in 2020. Although drunk driving is steadily decreasing, an average of 36 drunk driving traffic accidents still occur daily, indicating that the frequency remains high.