Man Attacks Taxi Driver While Vehicle Moves at 60 km/h

[Anchor]

Another incident has occurred in which an intoxicated passenger assaulted a taxi driver while the vehicle was in motion. Despite the persistent nature of such incidents, relevant legislation intended to protect taxi drivers has failed to pass through the National Assembly for years.

Bae Seong-jae reports exclusively.

[Reporter]

Around midnight on July 7, a man boarded a taxi and began lying across the seat as if intoxicated.

Five minutes later, the man suddenly sat up and struck the passenger seat with his fist.

Although the taxi driver, identified as A, attempted to stop him, the passenger leaned toward the front seat and began causing a disturbance.

"Hey, how old are you? How old are you?"

The passenger reached out toward A, grabbed him by the neck, and began assaulting him while hurling profanities.

"Drive properly, you son of a b."

All of this took place while the vehicle was traveling at speeds of over 60 km/h.

The dangerous behavior, which included the passenger suddenly opening the car door, continued for 20 minutes until police arrived following a report by A.

A, who has been driving a taxi for 22 years, sustained injuries requiring two weeks of medical treatment and was unable to work for ten days.

[A: I feel a sense of disillusionment with life. I have been driving a taxi for a long time, and I am even questioning whether I should continue doing this job.]

On July 15, the police referred the passenger, a man in his 40s, to the prosecution on charges of assaulting a driver under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Crimes.

Taxi drivers are frequently exposed to assault, with four out of every ten driver assault cases occurring in taxis.

Most of these incidents involve intoxicated passengers late at night. On June 14, in Seoul, a passenger not only struck a driver in the face multiple times but also stole the taxi and attempted to flee, only to be caught after a pursuit by a delivery rider.

[Lee Woong-hyuk, Professor of Police Science at Konkuk University: It is necessary to come up with alternatives because this not only poses a threat to the taxi driver but can also lead to multiple casualties due to traffic accidents involving others.]

While protective partitions for drivers have been mandatory in buses since 2005, bills proposing similar measures for taxis have been repeatedly introduced in the National Assembly since 2018, yet they have never even cleared the standing committee stage.

(Video Editing: Lee Seung-yeol, VJ: Noh Jae-min)

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