A stopped vehicle on a Korean expressway can become dangerous long after the original breakdown or collision. Data cited from Korea Expressway Corporation show a 44.3 percent fatality rate for secondary crashes, about 4.4 times the overall highway-crash average.
The same road operator provides a free emergency towing service that moves disabled vehicles to the nearest rest area or other designated safe point. The service averaged 28,559 uses a year over the most recent three-year period cited in the road-safety data.
The danger after the first crash
The practical problem is awareness. Private tow trucks may reach a scene quickly, but the existence of an official no-charge option is less widely understood. For a driver stranded on a high-speed road, reducing the time spent exposed on a shoulder can matter more than the eventual towing distance.
Secondary crashes are especially severe because approaching traffic is moving at highway speed and may have little time to react to a stopped vehicle, debris or people outside a car. The fatality figure is therefore a reminder that the incident does not end when the first vehicle comes to a stop.
Holiday traffic raises the relevance of that risk as more vehicles travel long distances and breakdowns become more disruptive. The core safety issue is to move people and vehicles out of the traffic stream as quickly as the official emergency response system allows.