2ID Takes Measures to Prevent Accidents
The Army has decided to place Highway 3 running in front of Camp Casey off limits. This is the road where the accident that killed an elderly South Korean woman last month occurred. The highway was put off limits due to concerns about cars parked on the side of the road and the amount of civilians in the area.
The new route to Camp Casey’s Gate 2 adds about 15-20 minutes on the already hour long drive for Army vehicles between Dongducheon and Uijongbu. What I find interesting is that the longer route still has the same problems as the more direct route. I drove on this route just last week. There are still cars parked on the side of the road, pedestrians in the streets, heavy traffic, and I saw an old lady pushing a cart with cardboard in the right hand lane that we had to get over to the left lane to avoid.
Which brings me to my point that no matter what route you choose you will have the same problems. When an accident occurs on this route then what is going to be the new route then? Were running out of roads to put off limits. The conditions on these roads would improve if sidewalks were installed and civilians and bicyclists were forced to use them. To often I see an area that does in fact have a wide sidewalk yet the Korean national is still riding his bike or pushing a cart in the right hand lane of the highway.
In the area where the elderly woman was killed there were sidewalks inn the area plus crosswalks with walk lights, but she chose to not to go to a crosswalk and to jaywalk through heavy traffic. She had probably jaywalked across the street for years and nobody ever ticketed her for it. Maybe a few tickets would of convinced her to use the crosswalks thus adverting the accident. These are the conditions that contribute to causing accidents and changing roads won’t change that.
Proposing changes to Korean sidewalks, roads, and pedestrian habits is an ignorant and quixotic pursuit. The Koreans have the inherent right to use their roads any way they want to, just as we do in the US. If the farmers drive their tractors down the roads at night with no lights on, the kids run across the road or walk in it without a care, and the right lane is full of hand-carts, then that's the way it is – get used to it! Foreign drivers of any sort must adapt to the Korean road use habits. All visiting drivers must realize: that everything will be on the roads in Korea, that they must be much more attentive than where they're from, and that they will get in a lot less trouble if they slow down and expect the unexpected. I believe the roadway chaos you see in Korea is due to how their law treats vehicular accidents: whoever got hurt the most is the victim and all accidents are crimes. There's none of this stuff about the kid jumping in front of the car that had no time to avoid him being an adequate excuse. I benefitted from this during the 8 years I spent in the Seoul area because I rode my bicyle all over that city and well beyond, without ever feeling threatened and was never harassed by drivers just for being there. Can't say that about the good ol' US where I am now. Way too many people here think the roads are for SUVs and trucks, even though the laws say otherwise. And, way too many US drivers are actively trying to distract themselves from their main responsiblity – controlling their vehicle as it hurls down the road – by playing their earthquake stereo, blabbing on their cell phones, eating/drinking/smoking, putting on cosmetics, etc. I would be some great shit if all traffic accidents were criminalized in the US – might make some people pay a bit more attention. Then, maybe they wouldn't whine about the road-use habits of the locals when they go to foreign countries.
The point I am making is that the some Koreans expect USFK to not have accidents happen any more when the conditions that are set here make that impossible.
The conditions created by driving in Korea will have to change before there are no more accidents. You suggest we drive slower. We are already going 15mph with civilian drivers driving by me at 75mph, I might as well walk if I go any slower. Plus the fact we drive so slow keeps us in the right lane where all the pedestrians and parked vehicles congregate thus forcing a slow moving military vehicle to continuosly change lanes into the land with people driving anywhere from 55-75mph when you are traveling 15-25mph. This has caused many fender benders on the roads here between Korean and USFK vehicles.
The measures I suggest such as keeping people on a sidewalk would greatly reduce the possibility of another accident. Why does someone have to ride their bicycle or push a hand cart in the right lane of a road when their is a perfectly good sidewalk available?
Plus you make it seem that is only USFK vehicles getting in accidents with the civilians in the road. I have seen many Korean on Korean accidents involving people in the road as well. Keeping people on the sidewalks would reduce accidents between Koreans as well. This is good for everyone involved. Korea continuosly is a world leader in per capita traffic fatalities and something should be done. It just takes the Korean police to enforce existing traffic laws which they are never eager to do.
Thus the accidents will continue until the day we pull out of here if the conditions do not change.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who realizes that this MG Honore pet-peeve "2ID is a right-lane division" rule is a bunch of crap. More often than not, the right lane is much more dangerous to drive in than the left on a four-lane road. It should be the vehicle commander's call which lane is safest given the situation at hand.
Furthermore, when I was driving a Bradley around Area I back in the Team Spirit days (dating myself), I don't recall having to deal with these ridiculously sluggish speed limits. Also, we weren't forced to drive only at night. From the military vehicle driver's point of view, it gets very tiresome and mentally tedious to crawl down the road, riding the brake anytime you have a downward slope. Slap some arbitrary restrictive hours on the equation, say maybe 2200-0500, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Oh, and before I forget to mention, there's an unwritten law in Korea that you don't have to obey stop lights in the wee hours of the morning, which of course is when the US tracked vehicles are on the road!
Koreans don't give USFK vehicles the same respect on the road as they do fellow Korean vehicles because they know we have to abide by these overreactive rules and we're so paranoid about having accidents. Slow-moving US vehicles are an invitation to adjashi or adjumma to try and cut in anytime they can.
Putting MSR3 off-limits is just the latest event in a long series of overreacting to isolated incidents because we're a zero-defects organization.
A minor quibble. Bicyclists should be on the road, in most cases. I don't know anything about highway 3, but most of the time, bicyclists should be on the road.
I was going to point out that cyclists on the road should follow predictable behavior but in fact, in Korea, most drivers and riders, of all vehicles, need to be reminded to be predictable.
Of course the major problem with your suggestion, "…sidewalks were installed and civilians and bicyclists were forced to use them." is the problem in Korea of enforcement. Probably there are relevant rules and laws already on the books that would have reduced the likelihood of the accident.
I don't really mind bicyclists on lesser used roads but on a highway with heavy traffic, like Highway 3, with slow moving military traffic in the right lane, bicycles, pedestrians, handcarts, etc. should not be allowed. Riding a bike on that highway seems suicidal to me but people do it all the time.