Freight trucks park in western Seoul on Nov. 7, 2021. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jan. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — The state-run Korea Expressway Corp. announced on Tuesday that it will expand the application of the ‘rest-mileage’ system introduced to encourage truckers to observe rest hours to 180 sites on eight routes.
The system was introduced in May last year as a way to prevent drowsy driving among truckers by providing them with gift coupons if they certified that they rested at service stations or drowsy shelters along highways.
The newly added sites include seven service stations and 14 drowsy shelters on the Jungbu Expressway and the Namhae Expressway.
Accordingly, the rest-mileage system will be introduced for 87 out of 201 service stations (43 percent) and 93 out of 232 drowsy shelters (40 percent).
After the rest-mileage system was introduced, a total of 8,301 truckers certified that they had rested for an aggregate total of 459,276 times.
The expressway operator noted that the number of truck traffic accidents caused by drowsy or careless driving declined by 27 percent on the routes where the rest-mileage system was introduced.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
