Concerns grow with e-scooters following BTS Suga’s drunk driving

After Suga, a member of the K-pop group BTS, admitted Wednesday to drunk driving an electric scooter, concerns have been raised calling for stronger regulations and management of personal mobility devices.

Oh Seo-yeon, a 28-year-old office worker based in Seoul, told The Korea Herald that she finds herself being extra cautious when walking around the city because of personal mobility devices like electric scooters or motorized bicycles.

“There are countless times where I almost got run over by electric bicycles and scooters that don’t abide by traffic rules,” said Oh. “Because these vehicles are run on electricity, it’s hard to hear them pass by me. I find myself taken aback when walking around the city sometimes because I didn’t expect an electric bike or scooter to rush past me.”

Oh added that she was “shocked” when she heard of Wednesday’s drunk driving case with Suga, and hoped that the incident would act as a “wake-up call” to bring stricter regulations for drivers with such personal mobility devices.

According to Seoul Yongsan Police Station, Suga, who is currently serving his mandatory duty as a public service agent, on Wednesday was found drunk driving on his electric scooter and was under investigation for violating the Road Traffic Act.

Police officials added that Suga was in a state of intoxication after falling off an electric scooter in Yongsan-gu. A breathalyzer test conducted by police on the spot confirmed that Suga’s blood alcohol level was 0.08 percent or higher, a level that could result in the cancellation of one’s driver’s license in South Korea.

On Wednesday, police officials added the K-pop star had been on a motorized bike, commonly referred to as an electric scooter. By law, drunk driving on an electric scooter carries the same administrative penalties as drunk driving a car. Such actions can be punishable by imprisonment for not less than one or no more than two years, or a fine of up to 10 million won ($7,231) if the vehicle’s maximum speed is over 25 kilometers per hour.

While Suga’s case did not result in a fatal accident, it shed light on the number of accidents that occur due to personal mobility devices and motorized bicycles, raising the need for the vehicles’ drivers to be as careful as drivers operating more conventional road vehicles.

According to Korea’s Traffic Accident Analysis System provided by the Korea Road Traffic Authority, 10,788 accidents occurred from 2019 to 2023 involving personal mobility and motorized devices like Suga’s electric scooter, leading to 226 fatalities and 13,481 injuries in total.

Among these numbers, an average of 150 drunk driving incidents with personal mobility devices occur annually.

According to statistics provided by the Korean National Police Agency, a total of 751 drunk driving accidents involving personal mobility devices occurred from 2019 to 2023. Drunk driving cases involving motorized bicycles increased from 163 in 2019 to 191 in 2020. While this was followed by a brief decrease to 110 in 2021, the numbers continued to rise again from the next year, reaching 144 in 2023.

Experts say that as the number of shared electric scooter companies has increased, the scooters have become more accessible, leading to accidents surrounding such vehicles occurring more frequently due to a lack of enforcement.

Professor Lee Ho-geun from the department of automotive engineering at Daeduk University urged stricter regulations and crackdowns on drivers who do not heed the Road Traffic Act.

“There are many regulations surrounding personal mobility devices and electric scooters, such as the ban that prevents more than one person from riding on the vehicles at once,” added Lee. “However, in practice, they are not well observed.”

Lee also suggested that Korea should consider introducing a license plate system to make enforcement easier.

“If a registration system is implemented even for shared personal mobility devices, it may be easier to track down who the users of such vehicles are through security camera footage, like regular vehicles,” added Lee. “If more violations are reported, the riders will become more cautious of their actions, leading to a decrease in accidents.”