[Photo Credit to pixabay]

On May 16th, two female high school students were riding an electric kickboard together and collided with a taxi causing  major casualties. 

Another student who was riding the kickboard fell into a coma, but is currently getting therapy. 

It was discovered that the taxi driver was not under the influence, meaning that the high schoolers were the ones who sped up and caused the collision with the taxi. 

Like this, there are many cases of casualties and wounded. Recently, accidents due to teenager’s electric kickboard accidents are occurring one after another. 

According to the national police agency in Korea, since 2017, there have been 816 cases about teenagers under 19’s personal mobility’s number of accidents. 

This means that there has been an increase approximately 46 times of these kinds of accidents in the last 5 years. 

In the event of an electric kickboard accident, minor and major injuries are unavoidable. 

In the process of failing or colliding with a car, there are risks of abrasions, fractures, as well as  facial and brain damage from hitting the head. 

However, a severe blow to the head or spine may lead to serious sequelae or even death. 

The reason for the electric kickboard’s characteristics also contribute to these injuries; its wheels are small and the center of gravity is designed quite high, meaning that it is easy for the rider to to hit their head first when shaking or falling. 

Not only for the riders, but when they collide with a car driver,  the driver may also complain about their psychological and physical damage caused by accidents such as trauma and disabilities. 

In an effort to prevent all these fatalities, there are laws for the limitations of the electric kickboard drivers. 

Such laws include: the need for a license to drive the electric vehicle, and when this isn’t kept, one may have to pay a fine of 100,000 won. 

Also, people are required  to wear a helmet when riding the electric kickboard, in case of injuries. 

There may be more specific rules in terms of the electric kickboard, but these are the basic rules that everybody must know. 

However, these laws are not strongly enforced and therefore it is easy to go through without keeping them. 

For instance, while the laws for the need for a license when driving the electric kickboard was determined, the number of teenagers caught driving a personal mobility device without a license increased more than twice. 

In addition, although there is a regulation for wearing helmets while riding the device, many of the teenagers do not follow this, and it is hard for the police to catch them, as they may be easily deceived. 

Therefore, these laws are in need of revising, as there should be more limitations and measures to fix the problems made with the previous regulations. 

Rep. Kim Jeong-jae stressed the point of the need of punishment for not only for the teenage riders, but people who didn’t prevent the teenagers from riding the electric mobile, statingthat, “Like those who sell alcohol or cigarettes to teenagers are punished, we need to revise the law to regulate personal mobility sharing companies that stand by and watch young people use personal mobility devices without a license.”