'Drive-thru' Stores... Movement to Ban in Some Areas of the United States

"Waiting Order Vehicles Cause Road Traffic Congestion"
South Korea Has No Laws to Regulate

As drive-thru stores, where customers can pick up their orders without leaving their cars, cause side effects such as traffic congestion and accidents, some regions in the United States are moving to ban drive-thru stores.

On the 25th (local time), CNN reported, "Drive-thru stores provide convenience and food to hungry drivers, but the queue of waiting cars often spills onto the roads, causing traffic jams," adding, "Officials and urban planners point out that drive-thrus are a failed model overly focused on cars."

(This photo is not directly related to the article) [Photo by Yonhap News]

The United States is so widely known as the "country of drive-thrus" that drive-thru stores are ubiquitous. It is known that Americans use drive-thrus a total of 6 billion times annually.

Drive-thru stores first appeared in California in the 1950s and now number around 200,000 across the U.S. More than 70% of sales at major U.S. chains like McDonald's come from drive-thru locations.

Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of drive-thru stores increased rapidly. Hamburger chain Shake Shack, which previously did not operate drive-thrus, opened drive-thru locations starting with the pandemic. Mexican food franchise Taco Bell operated stores exclusively serving drive-thru customers.

CNN explained, "Restaurants focus on drive-thrus because of profitability. Drive-thru stores are smaller than those requiring seating and need fewer employees, so maintenance and operational costs are lower."

According to restaurant industry consulting firm Technomic, daily sales from drive-thrus in 2022 reached $130 billion (approximately 174 trillion KRW), a 30% increase compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019.

Frequent Accidents Near Drive-Thru Stores... Some States Move to Ban Additional Installations

The problem is that as drive-thru stores increase, nearby traffic becomes congested, and accidents involving pedestrians, cyclists, and public transit users also rise. There are also claims that drive-thrus interfere with the business of nearby stores.

CNN cited Eric Dumbaugh, a professor of urban planning at Florida Atlantic University, saying, "Drive-thrus often exist in locations that interfere with road safety."

Usually, drive-thrus are located far from pedestrian and bicycle paths, but some stores deliberately position themselves on main roads to attract drivers' attention. In such cases, cars entering the drive-thru are more likely to collide with pedestrians or cyclists.

CNN added, "As accidents occur frequently, personal injury lawyers even advertise to people injured at drive-thrus."

In fact, in Atlanta, a plan to ban additional drive-thru installations around the 22-mile (approximately 35 km) pedestrian path called the "Atlanta BeltLine" is scheduled to be decided in August, CNN reported. This follows recent accidents; since 2015, 14 pedestrians have died and 47 have been seriously injured in traffic accidents around the BeltLine.

Jason Dozier, an Atlanta city council member who proposed the bill, said, "We need to see if we can design Atlanta's urban structure centered on pedestrian safety."

Minneapolis, Fair Haven in New Jersey, and Creve Coeur have also banned new drive-thru stores in recent years.

Meanwhile, in South Korea, problems related to drive-thrus such as traffic congestion and pedestrian inconvenience are occurring, but current laws make it practically difficult to regulate drive-thru stores.

There is a traffic impact assessment system that checks whether new construction, expansion, or change of use of buildings will cause large traffic demand due to road impact or parking and devises countermeasures. However, this applies only to buildings with a total floor area of 15,000㎡ or more, so most drive-thru stores, which are usually under 1,000㎡, are exempt.

Most drive-thru stores are also excluded from the traffic inducement charge imposed on facilities that cause traffic congestion, as the charge applies only to facilities with a floor area of 1,000㎡ or more.

Accordingly, local governments are exploring various measures. Recently, Jeju Province is considering imposing traffic inducement charges on drive-thru stores. Gimpo City in Gyeonggi Province announced on the 26th that it will implement a "traffic impact review" starting in July, as it found that buildings constructed without traffic impact reviews, including drive-thrus, cause traffic congestion on nearby roads.

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