In 2008, drunken drunk driving was associated with 26,873 traffic accidents (12.5 percent of the total number, 215,822). In them, 48,497 people were injured and 969 were killed. The cost to the nation was estimated to be 685.5 billion won.
Car accidents are the most common cause of death, and since over 60 percent of them take place near schools or residential areas, it’s not surprising that Korea has the third-highest rate of accident-related child deaths in the OECD.
A 48-year-old man bumped his car into a taxi, and then taken for a breathalyzer test, which showed a blood alcohol level nearly four times the legal limit. Angry about the test, he burned himself to death, right in the police station, as in this other crime.
For the fifth consecutive year, the biggest cause of death of people in their twenties was suicide, followed by traffic accidents. For people aged ten to nineteen, the biggest killer was traffic accidents, followed by suicide.
The suicide rate among Koreans in their 20s spiked dramatically in 2007 and once again ranked as the top cause of death for that age group, the National Statistical Office said yesterday.
It was the fifth straight year suicide led the list in that demographic.
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The NSO, in the latest demographic survey on the youth population, said that 21 out of every 100,000 people in their 20s killed themselves in 2007. That’s more than twice the rate of the second-biggest cause, traffic accidents, which claimed the lives of 10.4 out of every 100,000 Koreans in their 20s.
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For those aged 10 to 19, suicide was the second-biggest cause of death in 2007. The NSO data showed 4.6 out of 100,000 people in the age bracket killed themselves in 2007, while 5.4 people died in car accidents.
(source)
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