Time now for our "Life & Info" segment… where we focus on information useful for your everyday life.<br />Unsurprisingly, lowering the speed limit in South Korea's urban areas by 10 kilometers an hour has been found to dramatically reduce the number of accidents.<br />And it also has very little impact on travel times.<br />Park Se-young has more. <br />In downtown Daegu, three taxis are headed to the same destination at different speeds - 70, 60 and 50 kilometers per hour.<br />The difference in time it took to drive the ten-kilometer route ranged from just 20 seconds to three minutes. <br />In fact, …the Korea Transportation Safety Authority last year found that lowering the speed limit of urban roads by ten kilometers per hour increases travel time by just four-point-eight percent,… or about two minutes.<br />More importantly, lowering the limit... considerably reduces the number of severe accidents.<br />According to a speed limit test carried out in two locations in Daegu from last July until March this year,… the number of serious accidents dropped by 56 percent and 23 percent, respectively. <br />Other countries have already taken the measure to improve traffic safety.<br />By lowering speed limits, Denmark saw a 24 percent reduction in the number of road deaths, …while Australia and Hungary reported a 12 percent and 18 percent decrease respectively. <br />"Pedestrians have an 85 percent chance of dying when hit by a car driving at 60 kilometers per hour. This probability drops by 30 percentage points to 55 percent for the speed of 50 kilometers per hour."<br />In 2018, speed limits were lowered in 160 sections in ten cities including Jeju, Jeonju and Cheonan.<br />Since April 17th this year, the speed limits of main roads in downtown Daegu have been lowered by ten kilometers per hour.<br />The Korean government is looking to continue its efforts to make streets safer,… by lowering the urban speed limit in more than 150 sections throughout the country in 2019.<br />Park Se-young, Arirang News. <br />
