Traffic rules and social innovation
Promising to make the Republic of Korea a better society to live in, President Moon Jae-in has introduced a secretarial portfolio called “senior presidential secretary for social innovation.”
The title of the new post implies that the presidential aide’s job is to innovate means to introduce changes and new ideas to reform society through “eradicating deep-rooted evils,” which was one of Moon’s most ambitious election pledges.
The question is about what the deep-rooted evils of our society are.
Moon defined corruption, irregularities and bad (administrative practices) of bygone days as longstanding evils that should be stamped out. Who will dare oppose the idea? But there is a more serious deep-rooted evil in this society than those he mentioned: citizens’ unconscious violations of basic rules and norms. This is the very difference between the Republic of Korea and advanced nations, including Japan, among others. The difference is easily confirmed on the street.
Street order is the basis of society where people from different parts of the spectrum of life are supposed to get together peacefully. Essential for the establishment of the street order are the traffic rules.
Abiding by traffic rules is, needless to say, a very basic part of a democratic society and a form of respect to other citizens for peaceful coexistence. These days, Vietnam is one of the most popular destinations of Korean tourists. Most of them visiting the Southeast Asian country are surprised by the flood of motorcycles on roads.
Streets in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and elsewhere look so disorderly due to the flock of motorbikes at first sight. But the two-wheel vehicles move orderly, indeed. Nine out of 10 Ho Chi Minh City have motorcycles.
The country has a population of 94 million and the number of motorcycles number 45 million. Vietnam indeed is a nation that moves on two wheels.
In contrast, the registered motorcycles here stands at a little more than 2 million, and they are the ultimate in street disorder as the very terror of car drivers and pedestrians.
Motorcyclists’ signature violation features their “acrobatic” passing through sidewalks, pedestrian crossings, changing lanes freely and ignoring traffic signs. What’s more serious is the fact that most people take it for granted, even if such illegal behavior threatens their safety on streets. A 65-year-old Seoul taxi driver’s testimony proves the seriousness of the situation: “They are almost all street stuntmen. They drive so dangerously between the bumper-to-bumper cars, invading rampantly into the lanes of four-wheel vehicles.”
More seriously, a considerable number of the drivers “do not know” that driving on sidewalks and crosswalks is illegal, even though the Road Traffic Law stipulates in Clause 12 that all vehicles (including motorcycles) are prohibited from operating on sidewalks.
What are those police officers doing? Many, especially foreign visitors, may ask. Of course, there are traffic policemen and related law enforcement officials from the ward office (checking illegal parking only). But they look helpless because of “too many violators” to crack down on, perhaps. How about the law-abiding spirit of four-wheel vehicle drivers?
To our great regret, Korean drivers are notorious for their aggressiveness as a former foreign ambassador to Korea said he could not understand at all why such kind and cool Koreans get so “crazy” once they get behind the steering wheel.
First of all, many Korean drivers do not consider others. Statistics show that nearly 80 percent of the drivers do not operate their turn signals for the drivers behind them when they make turns.
The Road Traffic Law provides that those who do not turn on their turn signals for turns will be fined 30,000 won ($25). I have never seen any traffic policeman check the violation, so far.
On top of traffic violations is illegal parking on sidewalks, which few can even imagine in advanced countries.
I’ve witnessed many times a driver of a Seoul kindergarten parking his yellow mini-bus on the sidewalks in front of the facility “for the safety of his passengers.”
It is no wonder that the kids come to think parking on the sidewalks is quite right and when they grow up and drive themselves, they will do the same thing with no sense of “being guilty.”
Related authorities can’t recognize the problems. From time to time, they used to set a special period to crack down on the violators. Yet, most of the “tough” campaigns ended in “much ado about nothing.” To the eyes of foreigners, it is bizarre for the traffic policemen to just stand on the streets without taking due legal action against the violators.
It is also true that the police have been short-handed, so far, because so many policemen have been dispatched to the scenes of demonstrations and sit-ins.
The police force has been so busy, so far, due to the never-ending demonstrations and sit-ins on streets by various kinds of interest groups, including the confrontation between conservatives and progressives. Now, the Moon government has just started to build what it calls a “happy society.” On top of the list of deep-rooted evils Moon vows to get rid of must be the habitual violation of basic rules and norms.
Without the establishment of the law-abiding spirit, every house he builds will end up as a house of cards. Park Moo-jong is the Korea Times advisor. He served as the president-publisher of the nation’s first English newspaper founded in 1950 from 2004 to 2014 after he worked as a reporter of the daily since 1974. He can be reached at moojong@ktimes.com or emjei29@gmail.com.