Tuesday, 3:17p.m. A 25-toncargo truck struck a car in front of it near Cheongju IC on the downbound Gyeongbu Expressway. The driver fell asleep and died.
Three weeks after the accident, the safety manager of the trucking company, the CEO, and the management of the logistics subsidiary of the original contractor, a large conglomerate, are each notified of a prosecutor's investigation. The safety manager said.
"Why should our CEO be investigated because the driver fell asleep?"
After the enforcement of the Fatal Accidents Act in January2022, and its expansion to workplaces with five or more full-time workers in January 2024, the answer to this question has clearly changed.
If a fatal accident occurs in a cargo operation, the person in charge may be subject to criminal penalties. And the penalty is not determined by "who was driving" but by "does the person in chargehave a record of fulfilling the obligation to ensure safety and health".
In this article, we'll focus on three of the most common questions safety management teams are confused about.
1. Is my company subject to the OSHA?
2. What incidents qualify as "major industrial accidents"?
3. What do I need to do now to prepare?
Does My Company Apply - Based on Freight Operations
Two paths to coverage
There are two paths to coverage under the Act: major industrial accidents and major civil accidents. The most common application for freight forwarding is a major industrial accident.
| Category | Serious Industrial Accidents | Serious Public Accidents |
|---|---|---|
| Scope of Application | Workers at the workplace (employees, branch staff, subcontractor workers, etc.) | Accidents involving raw materials, products, public-use facilities, or public transportation affecting citizens |
| Relevance to Freight Transport | Driver fatalities, loading/unloading worker accidents, etc. | Public harm caused by hazardous material transport accidents, etc. |
| Criteria | 1 or more fatalities, 2 or more people requiring treatment for over 6 months, or 3 or more occupational disease cases caused by the same hazard | 1 or more fatalities, or 10 or more people requiring treatment for over 2 months, etc. |
| Penalty | Responsible manager: imprisonment for 1 year or more, or a fine of up to KRW 1 billion | Same |
One thing to note - many safety management teams mistakenly believe that "we are different from manufacturing because we only transport goods," but the law does not make this distinction. What the law looks for is "is therea workplace with 5 or more full-time workers" and "is aworker killed?"
January, 2024 Expansion - Now is the Time to Get Hot
As of January 27, 2024, the Fatal Accident Punishment Act was expanded to cover workplaces with more than 5 full-time workers and less than 50 full-time workers. This means that most domestic freight forwarders are now covered.
According to Statistics Korea, the vast majority of domestic freight forwarding businesses are small and medium-sized, and most of them were not covered before 2024, but this is different now.
This means that it's realistic to assume that almost every truck driver reading this is covered.
"They're not our employees" - the most dangerous misconception
This is the most common question we hear in the field, and the answer is clear.
Drivers are included in the definition of "workers" under the Act.
According toArticle 2 ofthe Act, a worker includes "any person who provides labor for compensation for the purpose of carrying on a business." Although a driver is a sole proprietor, he or she may be recognized as a worker if he or she provides labor under the direction and managementof a specific transportation company.
In practice, the DOL's interpretation is based on "theactual structure of the work performance rather than the form of the contract." In other words, if the driver receives dispatching instructions from the company, drives a company-branded vehicle, and reports to the company's system, the driver is likely to be considered an employee - even though he or she is technically an outsider.
We'll cover this in more depth in our next installment, "Managing for-hire vehicles, who's responsible for accidents?".
The real penalty - "Do you have a record of fulfilling your obligations to ensure safety and health?"
The Fatal Accidents Act does not punish a manager just because there is an accident. The law only asks one question.
"Did the manager fulfill his obligation to ensure safety and health, and is there a record of it?"
If they have fulfilled this obligation, they may be exempt from or have their penalties reduced, even if an accident occurs. Conversely, if they have neglected their duties, they will be penalized regardless of whether the driver was directly at fault.
Four core duties required by law
The statute and implementing regulations can be summarized as follows:
| Obligation Area | Specific Requirements in the Freight Transportation Industry |
|---|---|
| (1) Establishment of Safety and Health Management System | Dedicated safety management organization, designation of a safety officer, allocation of a safety budget |
| (2) Identification and Improvement of Hazards and Risks | Regular inspections at least once every six months, analysis of risky driving patterns, vehicle inspections |
| (3) Inspection of Compliance with Safety and Health Obligations | Verification of driver training completion, driving records, and history of risky behavior detection |
| (4) Safety and Health Measures for Outsourcing and Contracting | Evaluation of safety capabilities of branches and partner companies, estimation of safety management costs |
Applying these four to the realities of trucking, the questions a safety management team leader must answer are
- Does each driver have a history of risky driving behavior (drowsiness, failure to look ahead, speeding, etc.)?
- Is there a historyof what they did when they saw signs of danger ?
- Do you inspect and supervisethe level of safety management of your drivers and contractors?
- Does the company automatically accumulate records of dangerous events such as blind spots, lanedepartures, and sudden braking?
If you can't answer "yes, we have documentation"to these four questions, it's hard to avoid a finding of "management failed to fulfill its obligations"in the event of an accident.
Three real-life penalty scenarios - what was decisive in each case
Scenario A: No driver management records at all
- Situation: A medium-sized logistics company manages 120 drivers, but does not systematically keep records of individual drivers' driving habits and risky behaviors. Dashcams exist, but are only checked when an accident occurs.
- Accident: A driver falls asleep at the wheel, causing a minor fatality. Post-accident analysis reveals that the driver had been on a long, back-to-back assignment for two weeks prior to the accident.
- Issue: Does management have a system in place to monitor driver fatigue and risky behavior?
- Decision: No monitoring system in place → breach of duty of care likely
Scenario B: Safety equipment is installed but there is no record of its operation
- Situation: A company has installed AI safety equipment in its vehicles, and hazard warning data is being generated automatically. However, there is no record of what action was taken when the warnings occurred.
- Incident: The driver had a total of 27 drowsy-distracted driving warnings in the month before the accident, but the company took no action.
- Issue: Is "installation" sufficient to fulfill the obligation to ensure safety and health?
- Decision: The system was in place, but the "detect → act" system was not functioning → the obligation was not fulfilled
Scenario C: When there is a record of specific fulfillment of obligations
- Situation: AI safety equipment installed + driver interviewed when warned of a hazard - training history automatically recorded + driver reassigned and further trained if hazard pattern repeated. Same criteria applies to branch drivers. Management receives quarterly safety status reports.
- Accident: Force majeure accident still occurs
- Issue: Did management implement a reasonable level of safety measures?
- Direction of judgment: Existence of "duty fulfillment" as evidenced by objective records → Possibility of liability reduction or immunity
The difference between these three scenarios boils down to one question.
It's not "does the system exist", but "is there a record of the system actually working and being acted upon"?
3 Risks Unique to Freight Transportation - Where You'll Get Stuck in Court
① Blind Spot Accidents — The Fatality Rate for Large Freight Trucks Is 28 Times Higher Than for Passenger Cars
Because of their size, height, and blind spot structure, large freight trucks are far more likely to cause fatal outcomes when an accident occurs. According to the Samsung Traffic Safety Research Institute, the fatality rate in right-turn pedestrian accidents involving large freight trucks is 28 times higher than that of passenger cars.
From the perspective of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act, this carries important implications. When a blind spot accident occurs, a key criterion in determining whether the company has fulfilled its duty is whether it recognized the risk of blind spots and took preventive measures.
Simply installing cameras is not enough. The argument that “the company did its part because it installed cameras” will not hold up in court. What the law looks at is whether the risk was detected, whether action was taken, and whether there is a record of it. For a more detailed discussion of the difference between blind spot cameras and AI detection, see Is Installing a Blind Spot Camera on a Freight Truck Enough? (https://mobility.aimatics.ai/blog/truck-blind-spot-camera-vs-ai-detection).
② Joint Liability for Owner-Operator Drivers — They Are Not “Outsiders”
As noted earlier, owner-operator drivers may still be recognized as workers if they are effectively under the company’s direction and control. This means that management can also bear responsibility for fulfilling workplace safety and health obligations in relation to accidents involving owner-operator drivers.
The problem is that many freight carriers treat owner-operator drivers as “outsiders” and exclude them from their safety management systems. In many cases, there is no record of risky driving monitoring, training, or retraining for these drivers. If an accident occurs, this gap can immediately become grounds for penalizing the responsible manager.
③ Fatigue and Long-Distance Driving — A Structural Risk in the Industry
Under the structure of the safe freight rate system, long-haul and overnight driving are often unavoidable in the freight transportation industry. This creates structural conditions that lead to drowsy driving and accumulated fatigue.
From the perspective of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act, this is considered a foreseeable risk. In other words, the argument that “this is just how the industry works” is not a valid defense. On the contrary, it may become an aggravating factor: if the risk was foreseeable, why was there no system in place to address it?
5 things your safety management team should check right now
This checklist isn't just for reference; these are the items that are actually looked at in court to determine if you've fulfilled your duty. If you answered "don't know" or "none" to any of these questions, it's time to start preparing
| No. | Checklist | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Are there records of detected risky driving behaviors by driver (e.g., drowsiness, forward inattention, speeding)? | ☐ |
| 2 | When a risk warning occurs, are the actions taken automatically recorded? | ☐ |
| 3 | Are the same safety management standards applied to contracted drivers and partner companies? | ☐ |
| 4 | Are driving risk events such as blind spots, lane departure, and sudden braking automatically collected? | ☐ |
| 5 | Is the status of safety management regularly reported to management? | ☐ |
If you have less than three "yes" answers out of five, you'll have a hard time arguing that you fulfilled your duty to ensure health and safety in the event of an accident.
Most commonly missed - "Records"
The most common oversight in real-world freight operations is not the lack of a system, but the lack of a record.
- Driver safety training is conducted, but there is no data on who received what and when.
- Verbal warnings are given when dangerous driving is detected → but there is no record of the time, content, or follow-up.
- You emphasize safety to your drivers → but you don 't have a record of each driver' s individual history
"We took care of it" doesn't count in court - what counts is objective data with dates, who was responsible, andwhat was done.
The most realistic way to build record-based safety management
Why black boxes don't prove it
While many companies consider dashcams to be a safety management tool, they are not "evidence" for the purposes of the OSHA.
All they record is "what happened". What the law requires is "how did you manage it before it happened?" The two are completely different.
What you need is a system that does three things simultaneously
- Detecthazards in real time
- Alert the driverimmediately upon detection to prevent an accident from occurring
- Automatically recordthe detection-warning-action history.
How AID supports the fulfillment of the "duty to ensure safety and health" in freight operations
A.I.Matics' AIDis more than just a safety device that prevents accidents, it provides a data-driven system for freight forwarders to actually fulfill and prove their legal obligations.
1. Real-time detection of risky behaviors with on-device AI
- AI detects driver risk behaviors such as drowsiness, distracted driving, cell phone use, smoking, and more in real-time.
- Instant judgment inside the vehicle without server transmission delay - instant warning
- 5-channel blind spot simultaneous recognition to preemptively detect left, right, rear pedestrian and motorcycle approach risks
- Demonstrated a 55% reduction in accident rate and 99% reduction in blind spots based on the Korea Transportation Safety Institute pilot project
2. Risk detection → warning → action history automatically recorded
- When a dangerous driving event occurs, the time, location, and behavior type are automatically recorded.
- Managers receive real-time notifications, check and record event videos on the platform
- In other words, the entire process of "detection → warning → action"remains as objective proof data required in court.
3. Driver scoring provides evidence for improvement measures
- AI-based driving analysis calculates safety scores for each driver
- Provide a basis for management decisions such as training, reassignment, contract renewal, etc. based on scores
- The score data itself is proof that "management has systematically carried out safety management"
4. Proven cost-saving effect
- Based on the demonstration of dangerous goods transportation vehicles by the Korea Transportation Safety Authority, communication costs and labor costs were reduced by 99% compared to existing sensor-based terminals.
- Reduced accident rate, preventing an increase in the freight vehicle deductible association contribution
In other words, AID is a structure that reduces accidents while automatically accumulating "records of fulfillment of management responsibility obligations" required by law.
Wrapping Up - A New Standard for Freight Transportation Safety Management in the Era of the Fatal Accidents Act
To summarize what we have seen so far
After the expansion in January 2024, most freight drivers will be subject to the Fatal Accident Punishment Act. In the event of a fatal accident, the person in charge of management may be subject to penalties, and the penalty is determined not by whether the driver is "at fault" but by whether the person in charge has a record of fulfilling the obligation to secure safety and health.
And this "record" means the history of the system's operation, detection, and action,not its installation.
Every freight operator should be thinking about two things simultaneously
- Can I prevent accidents (driver behavior - blind spots - fatigue - real-time detection of risk events)?
- Can we prove that we prevented and managed them (automatic, data-driven recording)?
Only when you have established a system that does both, will you be able to fulfill your obligation to secure safety and health.
Is my company's safety management system acceptable under the OSH Act?
Based on the five checklists in this article, you can check the current level of your company and the points that need to be improved. We will provide you with specific preparation directions and improvement guides based on cargo operation cases through consultation.
Request a consultation on responding to the Act
This article is intended to provide general information, and we recommend that you consult with an expert for specific legal advice. The application and interpretation of the law may vary depending on individual cases.
