Road fatality rate among children below OECD average: report

The road fatality rate of Korean children dropped below the average for the developed world in 2011 for the first time in a decade, a report showed Monday.

An average of 1.3 of every 100,000 children under the age of 14 died in Korea as a result of traffic accidents last year, the home affairs ministry said, citing data compiled by KoRoad, the Korea Transportation Safety Authority, and the Korea Transport Institute.

The figure is lower than the average of 1.4 deaths for member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the ministry said. It marks the first time since 2002 when the organization began compiling the data that South Korea was below the OECD average for the child death rate from traffic accidents.

A total of 80 South Korean children died in 2011 due to traffic accidents, down 55.3 percent from 179 in 2007, the ministry noted.

The government attributed the decrease to improved safety measures including expanding school zones and setting up more surveillance cameras and speed bumps near schools.

"The government will continue to make investments in improving road safety for children," Home Affairs Minister Maeng Hyung-kyu said.

In a stark contrast, however, the country's road fatality rate is the highest among OECD countries despite improvements over the past decade, the data showed.

Korea logged 11.3 deaths from road accidents per 100,000 people to rank highest among the 29 OECD nations surveyed, followed by Greece with 11.1 people, the U.S. with 10.6 and Poland with 10.2, according to the OECD data. (Yonhap)