Tougher Punishment for Drunk Driving

Written by Ryu Hye-jung.

Punishments for traffic violations in Korea vary depending on the crime: If one fails to obey a traffic signal, he or she gets 15 points in penalties and is fined up to 70,000 won. For drivers with penalties exceeding 40 points, the driver is suspended from driving. Driving while drunk, however, can result in the loss of life for drivers, passengers, and other citizens. Therefore, traffic violations due to drunk driving can result in more serious punishments. If a driver receives more than 100 points worth of penalties due to drunk driving, then he or she has to take a minimum six-hour mandatory traffic safety education course.

Educating drivers about the consequences of their behavior has been my career, and now I want people to be more aware of the changes to traffic laws related to driving while impaired by alcohol.

The new and tougher punishment for drunk driving, called the “Yoon Chang-ho Act,” has taken effect starting on June 25, 2019. This revised act follows the death of the law’s namesake, a 22-year-old Korean solider who was killed by a drunk driver with a blood alcohol level of 0.181 percent, far higher than the blood alcohol limit of the time (0.05 percent).

After Yoon’s death, Koreans around the country had to confront the reality that any family could be torn apart or any friend could be lost due to drunk driving. Despite causing Yoon’s death, the driver was sentenced to just three years in jail. Thus, there was an urge for harsher regulation on drunk driving nationwide.

With the implementation of the Yoon Chang-ho Act, the legal blood alcohol limit has been revised to 0.03 percent, and drivers who have a level above 0.08 percent will be subject to confiscation of their driver’s licenses. The Act will also give longer prison terms to those who cause a death while driving inebriated. Now, drunk drivers will be imprisoned for one to two years and fined from five million won to ten million won. For those whose driver’s licenses are confiscated, the disqualification period to get a driver’s license back will increase to a maximum five years.

Fatalities from drunk-driving accidents are not only a Korean problem, but one the world is facing. According to the Korea Road Traffic Agency, the number of drunk-driving cases last year was 19,381, down 0.7 percent from 2017 (19,517 cases). The death toll from drunk driving dropped 21.2 percent in 2018 to 346. Meanwhile, after the implementation of the original Yoon Chang-ho Act last December, the number of drunk-driving cases in Jeollanam-do was down 30.2 percent in the first quarter of 2019 from the same period last year. In Gwangju, the number of cases decreased about 37 percent from January to April this year.

While the decrease in drunk-driving cases is encouraging, I am skeptical of the long-term results. The lower death toll from drunk-driving cases is a good start, but it still represents 346 family members, friends, and fellow Koreans who lost their lives to drunk driving.

From my interactions with these drivers in the traffic safety courses, I believe that Koreans need to reconsider the idea that drunk-driving cases are simply a mistake or a common accident. Drunk drivers can kill young soldiers, mothers, grandparents, and children, and treating this action like an accident with short-term consequences for drivers will not deter future violations.

The Yoon Chang-ho Act is a positive start, and I hope to see more action taken to address this serious problem in our society.

The Author
Ryu Hye-jung is a traffic safety educator and driving instructor. She loves discovering new things and going on adventures with her children.