"Set Cruise Control to 125 km/h"... Driver Involved in 13-Casualty Crash

It has been revealed that the driver of an SUV who caused a five-vehicle collision on a highway where traffic was moving slowly due to tunnel construction was using adaptive cruise control (ACC), a driving assistance system, at the time of the accident.

At around 1:00 PM on October 12, an SUV driven by a person in their 40s, A, struck a passenger car ahead on the southbound Tongyeong-Daejeon Expressway near the Jangsu Junction in Jangsu-gun, Jeollabuk-do. The impact caused a chain reaction involving three more vehicles ahead.

Two men in their 60s and 70s sitting in the back seat of the initially struck car were killed in the accident.

Eleven occupants in other vehicles involved were also injured.

The Jangsu Police Station in Jeollabuk-do has booked driver A on charges of causing death and injury through occupational negligence under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Settlement of Traffic Accidents and is investigating the exact cause of the accident.

Driver A reportedly told police immediately after the accident that they were driving with the cruise control function turned on.

The set speed at the time was found to be 125 km/h, though the actual driving speed has not yet been confirmed.

The speed limit for that section of the highway is 100 km/h, and vehicles were moving slowly near the accident site due to ongoing tunnel construction.

ACC is a driving assistance function that maintains a driver-set speed while adjusting the distance from the vehicle ahead, but it does not replace the driver's duty to maintain a forward view.

Drivers must manually decelerate or brake depending on road conditions.

Police are examining whether A's SUV secured a sufficient following distance from the vehicle ahead and whether the driver decelerated.

Other vehicle occupants and witnesses stated during reference interviews that the trailing SUV crashed into the front car without slowing down, triggering the chain-reaction collision.

Police have requested the National Forensic Service to analyze dashcam footage and the event data recorder (EDR) to verify the actual speed of A's SUV and whether ACC was engaged at the time of the crash.

(Reported by Jung Da-eun | Video by Seo Byeong-wook | Graphics by Lee Su-min | Produced by SBS Digital News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.