Analysis of registration of vehicles’ influence on road accidents in Korea
Abstract
This paper will evaluate the hypothesis that there is a relationship between registered vehicles and road accidents in Korea. The paper will highly seek to understand the role of vehicles’ registration in reduction of road accident in Korea. This will be based on analysis of accidents that have been reported in the country. Regression analysis will be a critical formula to analyze what has been happening between road accidents and registration of vehicles. The research shows that there is minimal relationship between registration of vehicles and road accidents. There are minimal changes in the level of accident as a result of the registration of new vehicles in the country. Thus, registration of vehicles has minimal reduction of road accidents in Korea.
Introduction
Traffic accidents have been discussed by various authors as they try to come up with the main cause of accidents. In Korea, most of the main causes of traffic accidents have been identified. However, it has become knowledgeable that traffic accidents are increasing from time to time. Accidents have been identified to cause exclusively high economic costs. There are different factors that have been attributed to causing massive road accidents in the country. The increasing number of vehicles in Korea is observed as one of the major causes of road accidents in the country. Bong-Min Yang and Jinhyun Kim carried out an analysis that led to the conclusion that traffic crashes in Korea have increased 7.8 times with an increase in number of vehicles in the country (Bong-Min Yang & Jinhyun, 2003).
The continuous development of the country, which has influenced changes in policies for services such as car registration, Korea has witnessed an alarming increase in number of vehicles. It is still unclear whether the increasing number of vehicles in the country is the main cause of accidents in the country. To understand the influence of the increasing registration of cars in the roads, it would be wise to consider presentations by various authors on the trial to evaluate speed limits as the major solutions to road accidents. With extensive reliance on statistics about road accidents, it shall be easy to analyze the main causes of road accidents and how they may be controlled. Therefore, it would be worth to test the hypothesis: registration of vehicles plays a minimal role in controlling road accidents.
In the country, registration of vehicles needs to be taken extremely seriously. Following the growing population in the country there is a need to maintain proper registration of vehicles. Since purchasing a vehicle, has become extremely easy there is a high possibility of illegal vehicles finding their way to the country. Therefore, there is a need to come up with a measure where registration of vehicles is the most reliable method. Different roads are subjected to different levels of traffic. Depending on the capacity of a road, number of cars is imposed. Korea has no proper track record of how vehicles registration processes were developed. Report on the number of registered vehicles would be useful in defining car registration as a solution to road accidents. The ministry for roads work in hand with the customs department has been assigned the role of ensuring that proper registration processes are followed, and individuals remain respectful to the set conditions.
Although, such a report would be used to compare the number of accidents caused by registered versus the unregistered vehicles, it may not bring out registration of vehicles as a solution to road accidents in Korea. However, other main causes may be evaluated to determine the most common causes of road accidents. There may be a focus on behaviors that are likely to lead to road accidents. The national and local governments of the republic of Korea have been at the forefront to implement the necessary legal terms to encourage full registration of vehicles (Bong-Min Yang & Jinhyun, 2003). The government has invested massively on sensitizing the citizens that speed kills. Therefore, it should follow up on proper registration of cars in the country.
Literature review
The article “Road traffic accidents and policy interventions in Korea” by Bong-Min Yang and Jinhyun Kim is an analysis of the significance of vehicles registration in reducing road accidents in Korea. Yang and Kim say that the number of vehicles in Korea has increased by 94 times in the last three decades. They relate this by the 7.8 times increase in traffic crashes. This is an indication that an increase in the number of vehicles in the country does not directly increase the number of accidents in the country (Bong-Min Yang & Jinhyun, 2003). However, these authors argue that registration of vehicles involved in various accidents and the probable cause of the accident would be a reliable strategy to control the level of accidents in Korea. According to them, the government has already developed a system that ensures that all vehicles that get to the country are registered, and no vehicle would operate without a license. However, there are corruption allegations that may attract entry of unregistered vehicles to the country.
In their article “Evaluation of variable speed limits for real-time freeway safety improvement” Mohamed Abdel-Aty, Jeremy Dilmore, and Albinder Dhindsa comes up with concrete argument on how speed limits would control road accidents following the changing number of registered vehicles in the country. They propose application of various variable speed limit (VSL) strategies as an element of safety improvement. The VSL implementation that they proposed has to work simultaneously implementing higher speed limits downstream as well as implement lower speed limits upstream of the area within which a crash occurred. According to VSL implementation the improvements on the roads, are achieved in the case of medium to high speed regimes on the freeway while there were benefits were achieved in low-speed instances. The VSL outlined various recommendations that would have been applicable in execution of speed limits on the roads. They mainly recommended for proper registration of vehicles so that they may easily track the vehicles alleged to be exceeding the minimum speed on various roads.
The above presentation on the need of capturing the number of registered vehicles in road accidents in the republic of Korea has been supported by excellent arguments by Chris Lee, Bruce Hellinga, and Frank Saccomanno in the article “Assessing Safety Benefits of Variable Speed Limits”. They have developed a method to evaluate the effectiveness of variable speed limits for registered vehicles in a bid to reduce road accidents in Korea. These authors have developed unique simulation strategy to understand how registration of vehicles would help in monitoring road accidents. Their research shows that registration of vehicles would be helpful in controlling speed limit and other factors that have been major causes of road accidents in Korea. All parties involved in controlling road accidents must be ready to play their role. They recommended detailed registration of vehicles as a method to capture high speed drivers and other irresponsible individuals on the road.
In his article “Road Accidents in Korea”, Park Sang-kweon presents concrete argument on the overview of road conditions and accidents in Korea. He mainly focuses on changes in road traffic conditions and an increase in traffic accidents, in the Republic of Korea over the ten year period between 1996 and 2005. There have been exceedingly high rates of accidents in the country over the period, which according to Park, were as a result of lack of proper road traffic systems and rules to control flow of traffic. Park comes up with a conclusive analysis on the effectiveness of vehicles’ registration in reduction of road accidents in Korea. As the number of registered vehicles continues to rise, the government should develop a strategy to ease congestion on roads that may lead to road accidents in the country. His presentation is a proper argument on registration of vehicles as one of the main strategies to curb road accidents through decongestion and expansion of the highly populated roads.
So Young Sohn in his article “Quality function deployment applied to local traffic accident reduction” emphasizes on registration of vehicles as a major solution to the rate of road accidents in Korea. However, his argument claims that the traffic police should be in a position to locate the owner of a given vehicle following a behavior that may cause an accident. There should be proper records to capture the number of vehicles caught in an accident. Details of any vehicle caught in illegal road practice should be maintained and retrieved when a similar behavior occurs in the future.
Following the sensitivity of road accidents in Korea in 1990s, So Young Sohn and Sung Ho Lee came up with research on how to influence the safety of Koreans. In their analysis, they came up with concrete argument on the relationship between accidents and the annual registration of vehicles. Their argument remains significant in defining the role of registering vehicles in the country. However, they do not support the method as the most reliable technique.
Methodology
This paper affirms that arguments by Bong-Min Yang and Jinhyun are essential, but vehicles’ registration may not fully deal with road accidents in Korea. Continuous registration of vehicles may not necessarily solve the problem. Also placing rules to govern the registration may not be an ample solution. Following existence of various factors: emphasis by the government for registration, existence of proper registration processes, availability of different types of cars, and different properties of variant cars it may be difficult to conduct exhaustive vehicles’ registration.
Although, drivers may adhere to rules on vehicles’ registration, Korean government would not have done it all to solve cases of road accidents in the country. There needs to be a proper application of technological factors in design for roads as well as cars. Application of various registration methods may be significant to cause a reduction in the level of road accidents in the country. However, the analysis shows that a factor such as increased population leads to road accidents during improper or irregular registration of vehicles make them more severe. This analysis should act as an affirmation that there is excellent relationship between speed limits and traffic accidents.
These analyses will be useful in determining the significance of the propositions given by authors discussed in the literature review. Multiple regressions through maximum rural registration of vehicles will be the most outstanding estimator since most accidents take place in rural areas. The regressions will be useful in defining how accidents are spread across the country. It will be a platform for comparison of how different limits on different roads would influence speed limits for the vehicles.
In line with multiple regression carried out on registration of vehicles in Korean roads, other regressions will be carried out to define the strength of the findings. A regression analysis indicating the consequences of speed limits with other factors held in bid to determine how each of them affects coefficient independently will be conducted. As a technique to show the importance of multiple regression simple regression comparing number of registered vehicles and the population will be carried out. The second regression analysis will be able to explain how registration of additional vehicle would cause an increase in the level of accidents in the country in comparison to the population. However, another variable of life expectancy will be used.
Together with the multiple regressions I will require other analyses, which will assist in ascertaining how variables such as population and life expectancy would help in vehicles’ registration as a solution to road accidents .Therefore, there will be need for extra analysis that will only take place through availability of another analysis. This will be a point to emphasize on the other factors that may have narrow significance to the increasing rates of road accidents in the republic of Korea. If, in a simple regression, registration of vehicles influences the population is extensively influenced by controlling variables. Also, if there lacks extensive difference between the number of registered and traffic accidents, this affirms the findings of the authors in the literature review are true and meaningful. If, in the simple regression, some changes will be observed showing how registration of vehicles affects life expectancy and the population, it will have disagreed with my hypothesis.
Multiple regressions
With all independent variables (year, population, life expectancy and registered vehicles) held constant there would be no accidents witnessed in the country since the intercept is negative. This means that the number of accidents witnessed in the country is dependent on factors such as population, life expectancy, period, and the number of registered vehicles. With all other factors held constant an increase in number of years by 2169.329 would lead to an additional accident. Holding other factors constant an increase in population by 34196.64 would lead to an additional accident.
According to the R square value on the multiple regression of 0.844465, there is reliable explanation of the influence of the registered number of vehicles in relation to the level of accidents that occur as a result. With other factors remaining constant, there is ample correlation between the number of registered vehicles and the level of accidents.
Looking at regression one and two, several things may be determined. Controlling the number of registered vehicles and the number of years together would have different effect compared to using one of them alone. R Square for regression one is smaller than that of the multiple regressions while the R Square for regression two is larger than that of multiple regressions. Since the second regression only considered one variable it could have not given reliable correlation. However, the multiple regression whose R square is more than that of regression one, and slightly lower than that of regression two, brings out a correlation that controlling variables that were used in the multiple regression case have a strong influence on the effects of the number of registered vehicles.
It would be wise to note that the new simple regression coefficient is statistically fundamental up to the 90th percentile. However, this disagrees with Bong-Min Yang and Jinhyun Kim’s argument on effects of registered vehicles to the number of accidents but may not be used to bring the conclusion. With the regression not passing a statistical significance test of 95th percentile, R squared is only 5 percent. Therefore, registration of vehicles can only explain 5 percent of the differences in death rates. Considering the results of the multiple regression, simple regression one could have been extremely useful in defining the effect of registered vehicles to accidents. Regression two does not extensively influence the conclusions made from the original regression thus, we fail to identify relationship between number of accidents and registered vehicles.
Conclusion
After carrying out a set of regression analyses, there is no adequate ground to dictate that there is a relationship between the number of cars registered and the levels of accidents in Korea. Although, registration of vehicles is a paramount thing, it cannot be used as the only tool for reducing road accidents in Korea. Although, it is not possible to make conclusion from Bong-Min Yang and Jinhyun Kim’s findings, there argument could be true. The data used in this case is not exact and that could be a limit to excellent findings. There lacks actual figure of the registered vehicles in the country. Massive consideration of other factors that may influence number of registered of vehicles in the country may change the relationship between number of registered vehicles and number of accidents. An initiative to get the actual number of registered vehicles should be undertaken to define how number of accidents has changed with changes in the number of registered vehicles. After consideration of various factors defined above and results for regression analysis, we may conclude that the number of registered vehicles has minimal connections to the number of accidents that occur in Korea.
Works Cited
Abdelaty, M, J Dilmore, and A Dhindsa. "Evaluation Of Variable Speed Limits For Real-time Freeway Safety Improvement."Accident Analysis & Prevention 38.2 (2006): 335-345. Print.
Lee, Chris , Bruce Hellinga, and Frank Saccomanno. "urnal Article Printable view Assessing Safety Benefits of Variable Speed Limits." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 23.4 (2007): 183-190. Print.
Park, Sang-kweon. "Road Accidents in Korea." IATSS research 32.2 (2008).
Sohn, So Young, and Sung Ho Lee. "Data fusion, ensemble and clustering to improve the classification accuracy for the severity of road traffic accidents in Korea." Safety Science 41.1 (2003): 1-14.
Yang, Bong-Min, and Jinhyun Kim. "Road traffic accidents and policy interventions in Korea." Injury Control and Safety Promotion 10.1-2 (2003): 89-94.
