Campus roads are classified as part of the private land, so the traffic law is not applied to campus and speeding vehicles could not be controlled. Even if cars, and motorcycles over the speed limit, drivers do not receive penalty points or pay fines. These loopholes raise car accidents with students’ safety ignorance. Yu Gyeong-hwa(School of Chemical Engineering, sophomore) said “I came close to death because the motorcycle sped over the sidewalk, not over the road. It was a dizzy and dangerous moment.”
All of the Yeungnam University campuses are pedestrian safety zones and the speed is restricted to 30 kilometers per hour. Although there are many speed limit, some drivers do not obey the traffic laws. Until June, the number of big car accidents, which took place in the campus, was about ten and there were other accidents which were not accepted to the head office. Common places of the accidents are following: Chunma road, front of the Foreign Language Institute and Geoul Lake parking road. The problem is that drivers do not observe the speed restrictions well. Since the number of cars in the campus is lower than the outside, drivers do not seriously think about the speed limit. Also, sanction of speed violation is not arranged yet, so it is difficult to control speeding vehicles. This means when car accidents occur, the Act on Special Cases concerning the Settlement of Traffic Accidents is applied, not the traffic laws. Therefore, the head office does not have right to punish the offenders.
Also the carelessness of pedestrians provokes serious problem. When we look around the campus, many students listen to the music by earphone or walk looking on their smartphones. This defenseless situation makes the risk of car accidents higher. Jeon Yong-ha, the charge of the Campus Maintenance, said “We conduct traffic safety campaigns every semester. Car accidents are reduced compared to last year, but for campus traffic safety, students should have a sense of security and drivers have to obey the traffic safety rules.”
