| Rescue workers carry out rescue operations after a 29-car pileup on Sangju-Yeongcheon highway in North Gyeongsang Province, Dec. 14. Police suspect the accident was caused by skidding on black ice. Yonhap |
By Kim Hyun-bin
A series of traffic accidents have occurred recently due to “black ice,” a thin coating of clear ice on roads which is hardly noticeable to drivers.
While local authorities hesitate to adopt preventive measures suggested by traffic experts due to high costs, the central government said it is devising comprehensive measures to cope with the issue.
On Monday, an inter-city bus carrying 14 passengers skidded and collided with a car and an oncoming cargo truck in Suncheon, South Jeolla Province, at 8:32 a.m.
The bus overturned, with one passenger dying and nine others sustaining injuries.
The police said thin ice from rain the previous night was covering the road.
Another similar accident took place on a highway in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, at 8:30 a.m. the previous day. In the seven-car pileup, one car skidded and stopped, causing a pile-up of other vehicles behind it. One person was taken to hospital for treatment.
The accident occurred about a week after two deadly accidents on the Sangju-Yeongcheon highway in North Gyeongsang Province, Dec. 14, which left seven dead and 32 injured in total.
The first accident involving 29 vehicles took place at 4:44 a.m. in which six people were killed and some 20 injured. Around the same time, another collision occurred in the opposite lane of the same highway involving 18 vehicles, killing one person and injuring others, police said.
According to data by the National Police Agency, there were 706 deaths due to accidents caused by black ice between 2014 and 2018. The number is 3.8 times higher than that caused by snow, 186 deaths.
A road with black ice is six times more slippery than a snowy road and 14 times more than normal road conditions, according to the Korea Expressway Corp.
There are some effective technologies to tackle the black ice issue, but it is not easy for local authorities to implement them due to high costs.
Experts say the most effective preventive measure is to install heat wires under the roads that can instantly melt ice buildup.
Currently heat wires are installed at the entrances of two tunnels on the Yeongdong Expressway and parts of the Daegwallyeong Highways in Gangwon Province. These are areas which usually experience heavy snowfall in winter.
Local authorities say they may need 4 billion won to 5 billion won to install heat wires over some 5 kilometers of road, and the maintenance cost and electricity bill would be huge.
Another measure is installing snow removal solution sprays along the roads, through which a control center can check the road conditions in real time and operate the sprays. However the price for installing the system in a 500-meter section costs around 500 million won.
Following the accidents, the transport ministry said it is devising various measures to cope with black ice, such as designating more road sections as “ice-vulnerable zones” which will be monitored extensively.