Catching Vehicles with Unpaid Traffic Fines at DUI Checkpoints

Police Promote Additional Collection Measures for Traffic Fines

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy reporters Seongpil Jo and Sehee Jang] The police have initiated plans to introduce additional collection measures to increase the amount of unpaid traffic fines.

According to the police on the 30th, the National Police Agency plans to improve the collection rate by introducing various new collection methods for fines that can be collected within the year. To this end, the police will pursue measures such as ▲seizure of virtual currency ▲license renewal conditional on full payment of fines ▲cracking down on vehicles with unpaid fines during drunk driving checks. Other measures include providing information on fine defaulters to the Korea Insurance Development Institute and sending payment notices via personal mobile devices.

This initiative comes in response to ongoing criticism from the National Assembly and others that the amount of uncollectible unpaid fines is excessive. As of November last year, the total unpaid fines amounted to 897.4 billion KRW, with a collection rate of about 84%. The police plan to raise the collection rate to 90% through the newly introduced measures and reduce this year's unpaid fine deficit to 330 billion KRW.

The police also plan to revise the criteria for write-offs to reduce unpaid amounts. They intend to establish standards for defaulters whose fines are inherently uncollectible, such as illegally registered vehicles, and pursue non-collectible write-offs (temporarily suspending the exercise of collection rights). Currently, a method is being considered to presume a vehicle as illegally registered if it meets all three conditions: ▲unpaid amount of 1 million KRW or more ▲no compulsory insurance for over 6 months ▲failure to undergo regular inspection more than twice.

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