"There is a cat on the median strip"... Police carry out cat rescue operation on the highway

Gyeongbuk Police: "Proactive Prevention Through Traffic Break"
Introduced in 2016... Emergency Vehicles Block Following Cars
Efficient for Quick Response Without Equipment Initially

A section of the highway was temporarily controlled because of a single cat. It was not a complete road closure but an implementation of a ‘traffic brake’ for vehicle safety.

The Gyeongbuk Provincial Police Agency announced on their official Facebook page on the 17th, “Last month, we detected a cat on the median strip at the 22 km mark of the Gunwi Expressway and activated the traffic brake to proactively prevent an accident.”

A cat sitting on the highway median barrier [Image source=Captured from Gyeongbuk Police official Facebook]

The traffic brake refers to an emergency vehicle zigzagging through lanes to intentionally slow down the following vehicles in order to prevent secondary accidents.

At the time, the highway patrol, responding to a report that “a cat is sitting on the median strip,” approached to rescue the cat. However, the cat jumped onto the opposite lane, creating a dangerous situation.

Although it could have led to a major accident, the highway patrol used the traffic brake to fully control both directions of the road. Fortunately, thanks to drivers complying with the control, the police and firefighters safely rescued the cat.

The Gyeongbuk police stated, “We were able to proactively prevent an accident through swift action.”

Police officers responding to a report execute a traffic break to rescue a cat [Image source=Captured from Gyeongbuk Police official Facebook]

The traffic brake system was introduced in Korea in December 2016. When police vehicles sound sirens and slow down causing congestion, vehicles must follow the instructions and slow down. If a vehicle overtakes the police car or violates the instructions, it is treated as a traffic violation, resulting in a fine of 60,000 KRW and 15 penalty points for passenger cars.

The purpose of the traffic brake is to reduce the speed of following vehicles to below 30 km/h to prevent additional secondary accidents. It is considered an efficient method as it allows for a quick initial response using only emergency vehicles without any special equipment.

In February, there was also a case where a stray dog appeared in the middle of the Gyeongbu Expressway in Gunbok-myeon, Okcheon-gun, and the police executed a traffic brake for about 20 minutes to safely rescue the dog.

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