Photo: Horst Insurance
While most drivers out there are using voice commands in their cars for things like changing the song and calling someone, the same technology has a much more important role in South Korea.
Thanks to a service launched by the local government, South Korean drivers can report roadkills directly to the authorities in charge of taking care of the whole thing using nothing more than a voice call.
The new service is called “Roadkill Reporting Service” and is currently part of a testing stage launched by the Ministry of Interior and Safety and the South Chungcheong Province.
The government says such an approach was needed because roadkills have become a growing threat for drivers in the country, but also because it’s a lot less convenient to reach out to the responsible authorities with a phone call.
The new service is based on T Map, a navigation app developed by SK Telekom, the largest mobile carrier in South Korea. Basically, users who are running the app can just ask T Map to “report a roadkill,” so the whole thing works more or less just like the reporting feature does in Waze, for instance.
T Map then marks the location of the roadkill and sends it to the 110 Government Call Center, after which the report is forwarded to the local authorities in the region where the accident took place.
Of course, the whole system requires a smartphone running the app, as otherwise the only way to report a roadkill comes down to the traditional approach that involves a phone call.
According to stats published by Korea Bizwire, roadkills are on a growing problem in the country, with no less than 19,368 such accidents happening last year. This is a substantial increase from 14,178 reported roadkills six years ago, and the Korean authorities warn that unless the threat is prevented in one way or another, there’s a chance the numbers would just keep rising.
The new service is called “Roadkill Reporting Service” and is currently part of a testing stage launched by the Ministry of Interior and Safety and the South Chungcheong Province.
The government says such an approach was needed because roadkills have become a growing threat for drivers in the country, but also because it’s a lot less convenient to reach out to the responsible authorities with a phone call.
The new service is based on T Map, a navigation app developed by SK Telekom, the largest mobile carrier in South Korea. Basically, users who are running the app can just ask T Map to “report a roadkill,” so the whole thing works more or less just like the reporting feature does in Waze, for instance.
T Map then marks the location of the roadkill and sends it to the 110 Government Call Center, after which the report is forwarded to the local authorities in the region where the accident took place.
Of course, the whole system requires a smartphone running the app, as otherwise the only way to report a roadkill comes down to the traditional approach that involves a phone call.
According to stats published by Korea Bizwire, roadkills are on a growing problem in the country, with no less than 19,368 such accidents happening last year. This is a substantial increase from 14,178 reported roadkills six years ago, and the Korean authorities warn that unless the threat is prevented in one way or another, there’s a chance the numbers would just keep rising.
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