Gwangju Police Significantly Strengthen Safety in 'Children Protection Zones'

Amended Road Traffic Act from the 25th... Full Enforcement of 30 km/h Speed Limit in School Zones

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] The Gwangju Metropolitan Police Agency (Chief Choi Gwanho) is significantly strengthening safety measures in school zones following the enforcement of the revised Road Traffic Act (Min-sik’s Law).

According to Gwangju Police on the 13th, Article 12 of the revised Road Traffic Act will be enforced from the 25th to ensure children's traffic safety.

Accordingly, the Gwangju Police’s plan to improve school zones will be carried out jointly with Gwangju Metropolitan City through safety inspections and facility improvements.

First, by the 18th, the 30 km/h speed limit will be fully enforced in all 157 elementary school zones within the jurisdiction.

For school zones located on roads with a 60 km/h speed limit (such as Songwon Elementary School and four other locations), a buffer zone will be used to induce gradual deceleration to prevent sudden braking near the boundary of the school zone when lowering the speed limit.

Additionally, traffic signals will be newly installed at crosswalks within school zones.

The revised Road Traffic Act mandates the installation of traffic signals at crosswalks on main roads closest to the main entrances of facilities designated as school zones.

Since traffic signals are already 100% installed at elementary school crosswalks on main roads in Gwangju city, additional traffic signals will be installed to further strengthen child protection.

To this end, a full survey of elementary school zones was conducted last month, and 26 locations at 17 elementary schools were selected for additional signal installation, which is planned to be completed in the first half of this year. For other school zones such as kindergartens, improvements will be made in the second half of the year after on-site inspections.

Furthermore, unmanned traffic enforcement equipment will be installed in school zones in accordance with the revised law.

Ahead of the mandatory installation of unmanned traffic enforcement devices, a project to install such equipment in school zones will be promoted in 2020.

A total of 99 unmanned traffic enforcement devices will be added across 98 school zones in the Gwangju area.

The Gwangju Police selected installation sites mainly around elementary schools and plan to proceed to install the unmanned traffic enforcement devices as quickly as possible.

A representative of the Gwangju Metropolitan Police Agency stated, “Together with Gwangju City, we will do our best to implement measures under the revised Road Traffic Act to create a safe commuting environment for children.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.