377 Highway Tollgate Accidents in 5 Years... 'Negligence in Attention' Most Frequent

It has been investigated that nearly 400 traffic accidents have occurred at highway tollgates over the past five years.

Vehicle movement near Seoul Tollgate on the Gyeongbu Expressway. / Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

According to data received by Maeng Seong-gyu, a member of the National Assembly's Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee from the Korea Expressway Corporation on the 30th, a total of 377 traffic accidents occurred at highway tollgates from 2019 to July of this year.

Among these, 120 accidents (0 deaths, 21 injuries) occurred in the Hi-Pass lanes, and 257 accidents (8 deaths, 53 injuries) occurred in the general lanes, with the accident rate in the general lanes accounting for 68.2% of the total. Vehicles using Hi-Pass accounted for over 90% of the total traffic volume as of August this year.

Looking at the causes of accidents, in the Hi-Pass lanes, inattention was the most common cause with 64 cases (53.3%). This was followed by drowsiness with 21 cases (17.5%) and speeding with 7 cases (5.8%). In the general lanes, the leading cause of accidents was also inattention with 154 cases (59.9%), followed by drowsiness with 23 cases (8.9%) and speeding with 10 cases (3.9%).

Assemblyman Maeng said, "Many traffic accidents are still occurring at tollgate facilities," and added, "As traffic volume is expected to increase further, it is necessary to establish systematic facility improvement measures to eradicate accidents."

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