In the midst of an accident where a driver collided with a child who was riding a bicycle in the reverse direction on the road in an apartment complex, the story of the child’s parents claiming that the driver was at fault, saying, “Do you not know the Minsik Act?” is controversial.
Recently, on the YouTube channel ‘Han Moon-cheol TV’ operated by Han Moon-cheol, a lawyer specializing in traffic accidents, a video titled, ‘It’s a reverse bike, but the civil law?’ was uploaded.
Black box informant A, while driving in an apartment complex in Changwon-si, Gyeongsangnam-do, ran into a child who was riding a bicycle in the reverse direction around 4 pm on the 5th. A said that the front view of the road was not secured due to cars parked on the right on the curve.
However, since the central line of the road in the apartment complex is installed by the private sector such as the apartment management office, not the local government, even if an accident occurs due to non-observance of the central line, it is not treated as a ‘central line violation’ accident, which is a violation of 12 major negligence.
According to Mr. A, immediately after the accident, the parents of the child saw the condition of Mr. A’s car and apologized, saying, “I will repay everything unconditionally.” However, their attitude gradually changed.
They said, “It’s a children’s protection area” and “Do you not know the Minsik Act?” and claimed that there was no fault of the child and that it was all the fault of Mr. A. However, it has been confirmed that the road is not a child protection zone.
In the real-time viewer vote, 98% of the viewers agreed that ‘There is nothing wrong with Mr. A’. 2% of the respondents said that ‘the bike was more wrong’. However, Mr. A’s insurance company explained that Mr. A was at fault of 40%.
Lawyer Han Moon-cheol also expressed the opinion that it was an unavoidable accident.
He said, “The cause of the accident lies in the child’s reverse driving. Can Mr. A expect the bicycle to come in the reverse direction?” He said. Reject it and ask for it to be sent to a summary judgment.”
He added, “Ask the insurance company, ‘What did I do wrong?
To this, some viewers expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the Minsik Act, reacting such as “The Minsik Act is being used for intimidation”, “If you have an accident with a child, you unconditionally push the Minsik Act”, and “I hope the Minsik Act is repealed soon.” .
The Minsik Act is a law that provides aggravated punishment for fatal or injured traffic accidents due to negligence of safe driving within the child protection zone. On September 11, 2019, the discussion began with the death of a child in a traffic accident at a children’s protection area in Asan, South Chungcheong Province.
According to the Office of Government Policy Coordination, the number of children killed in traffic accidents last year decreased by 66.2% compared to 2016, five years ago. This is an evaluation that the Minsik Act had an impact on preventing traffic accidents in children. However, the public opinion of ‘excessive punishment’ is also quite strong.
After the law was enacted, lawyer Moon-cheol Han said, “The purpose of the Minsik Act is very good, but there are cases where children’s faults are much greater.” “If you are unlucky, a child may fall and die. No,” he said, stating that the punishment was excessive. More than 350,000 signatures have also been gathered for a petition to the Blue House to amend the law.
On the other hand, Rep. Kang Hoon-sik, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, who initiated the Minsik Act, expressed his thoughts on the easing of the Minsik Act through the results of a poll that the majority of citizens responded that the driving habits of drivers improved and the speed limit of 30 km in the child protection zone was appropriate. He euphemistically expressed the opposite position.
According to the results of a poll conducted by Korea Research on 1,000 people for three days from April 22 at the request of Rep. Kang, 67.4% of respondents answered the question, ‘Do you think the number of accidents in child protection areas has decreased after the enforcement of the Minsik Act?’ “It has improved,” he replied. When asked whether the driving habits of drivers in child protection zones have improved since the enforcement of the law, 70.3% answered ‘improved’.
As for the speed limit of vehicles in the child protection zone, 64.7% of the respondents said that 30 km was appropriate. This is 2.7 times higher than the opinion that the speed limit should be increased (24.2%).
Rep. Kang said, “It is a meaningful opinion poll that can confirm the public’s perception of children’s traffic safety at the time the law was implemented two years after its implementation. However, I was able to confirm the perception that children have to endure inconvenience for traffic safety.”
Meanwhile, the Korea Legislative Research Institute under the Office of Government Policy Coordination plans to conduct a ‘post-legislative impact assessment’ on the Civil Diet Act by September. According to the evaluation result, the Ministry of Legislative Affairs is planning to take measures for improvement recommendations, including requests to revise the Civil Diet Act, to the relevant departments such as the National Police Agency. Although there have been prior legislative impact assessments within the executive branch, this is the first time an ex post assessment has been made.
The ex post evaluation includes a public perception survey of 1,000 people, a comparison of the incidence of traffic accidents before and after the enforcement of the law, and the fairness of aggravated punishment. Attention is drawn to the results of the post-legislative impact assessment on the Minsik Act, which caused a lot of controversy.
Hong Min-seong, reporter at Hankyung.com [email protected]