[Anchor]

Another incident has occurred where a drunken passenger assaulted a taxi driver while the vehicle was in motion. Despite such incidents repeating, legislation to protect drivers has failed to pass the National Assembly for years.

Reporter Bae Seong-jae has the story.

[Reporter]

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

Five minutes later, the man suddenly sat up and began punching the passenger seat.

Although the taxi driver, identified as A, tried to stop him, the passenger leaned into the front seat and began acting violently.

[Hey, how old are you? How old are you?]

He reached out toward A, grabbed his neck, and began assaulting him while hurling profanities.

[Drive properly, you XX.]

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

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

A, who has been driving a taxi for 22 years, suffered injuries requiring two weeks of medical treatment and was unable to get behind the wheel for ten days.

[A: I feel a sense of disillusionment with life. I have been driving a taxi for a long time, and I even started thinking, 'Should I keep doing this or not?']

On July 15, police referred the 40-year-old male passenger 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 cases of driver assault occurring in taxis.

Most of these incidents involve drunken 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 not just about the harm to the taxi driver; it can lead to multiple casualties due to traffic accidents involving others nearby, so it is clear that alternatives need to be prepared...]

While protective partitions for drivers have been mandatory in buses since 2005, bills to require them in taxis have been repeatedly proposed in the National Assembly since 2018 but have never even cleared a standing committee.

Reported by Bae Seong-jae | Video by Lee Seung-yeol | VJ by Noh Jae-min