Pull over or fork over for fire engines

The state’s emergency agency has begun cracking down on cars that fail to pull over for an emergency response vehicle.

According to the National Emergency Management Agency, vehicles that fail to pull over for a fire engine responding to an accident will be charged up to 200,000 won ($171) according to a revised traffic law.

According to the law that took effect Dec. 9, drivers must pull their vehicles to the side of the road or forfeit the right of way to oncoming emergency vehicles.

Vehicles at an intersection with an emergency vehicle coming from behind must take an immediate right and briefly wait for the response vehicle to pass.

Drivers on a one-way road must briefly stop their vehicles on either side.

However, vehicles unable to pull over because of either traffic or a red light are exempt.

NEMA officials plan to crack down especially hard on vehicles that deliberately do not pull over despite multiple requests to do so.

“There are incidents in which human casualties have occurred because of late response times,” said one NEMA official.

“With the cooperation of drivers we will be able to reduce the number of casualties through quickened response times.”

By Robert Lee (robert@heraldcorp.com)