Unintended acceleration or careless driving: What to blame for the central Seoul car crash?

The driver of the car in the car accident near City Hall on Monday night that left nine dead has claimed it was caused by sudden unintended acceleration.

A Genesis G80 sedan that crashed onto a sidewalk near Seoul City Hall on Monday night, which left nine people killed and six injured. [YONHAP]

Sudden unintended acceleration remains the crux of the question of responsibility for a recent tragic car crash that killed nine people near Seoul City Hall on Monday night.

At around 9:30 p.m., a Genesis G80 accelerated toward a sidewalk at an intersection near City Hall Station in Jung District, central Seoul. After crashing into two other vehicles, the car struck pedestrians, leaving nine dead and six injured.

The 68-year-old driver blamed sudden unintended acceleration for the accident, but experts refute the claim based on multiple angles of video footage taken from nearby restaurants and vehicles.

Sudden unintended acceleration — unexpected movement of a vehicle often accompanied by the loss of braking effectiveness — is normally caused by a design defect or manufacturing flaw.

The possibility of such unintended acceleration in this case "is noticeably low as a car experiencing unintended acceleration can never stop unless it hits a structure," Lee Ho-geun, an automotive engineering professor at Daeduk University, told the Korea JoongAng Daily.

"It is highly likely that the driver mistakenly pressed the accelerator thinking that it was the brake," Lee added. "It seems like the car showed brake lights, but details can be discussed after the police investigation."

Car manufacturers are 100 percent responsible if a vehicle is really proven to have suffered from sudden unintended acceleration. But validating the fault has remained tough as it's entirely the consumer's responsibility to prove it.

A total of 793 car accidents in Korea have been reported to the police claiming sudden unintended acceleration since 2010, but none have been attributed to such a malfunction by the court.

In 2022, woman in 60s claimed sudden unintended acceleration in a car accident that killed her grandson, who was a passenger in the vehicle, in Gangneung, Gangwon. The car's black box captured her screaming that the "car is crazy," and the "brakes are not working," but a malfunction has not been recognized yet.

Other car flaw scenarios brought up concerning Monday's accident include a fault in the software system and a problem with the Forward Collision-Avoidance Assist, a standard feature in Genesis cars developed by Hyundai Motor that detects obstacles and passengers near the car and stops it automatically.

BY SARAH CHEA [chea.sarah@joongang.co.kr]