Some drivers stopped at a checkpoint decide the safer move is to say nothing and blow into nothing. Open the statute and that choice sits near the heaviest band. Art. 148-2(2) of the Road Traffic Act puts refusing the test at 1 to 5 years of imprisonment — heavier than a first offence that blows under 0.08%. The licence splits the same way: one route leaves discretion, the other says shall be revoked.
1. The threshold is 0.03%. Art. 44(4) — and the ban in art. 44(1) reaches bicycles too.
2. Refusal is 1 to 5 years, 5 million to 20 million won. Against a first offence at 0.03-0.08% (up to 1 year, up to 5 million won), the floor is higher.
3. The statute forks on the licence. Plain drunk driving is "may revoke or suspend"; refusal falls under the proviso to art. 93(1) — "shall revoke".
The threshold is 0.03%, and bicycles are in
Art. 44(1) names what is covered — "no person shall drive a motor vehicle…, a tram or a bicycle while intoxicated." The bicycle is written into the provision alongside the rest.
Where "intoxicated" begins is art. 44(4) — "the standard for the state of intoxication in which driving is prohibited shall be a blood alcohol concentration of 0.03 per cent or higher." The figure came down from 0.05% in the 2018 amendment.
Measurement is art. 44(2): an officer "may measure by a breath test", and "in such cases the driver shall comply with the measurement". Art. 44(3) leaves a door open — where the driver "disputes the result", the test may be repeated "by drawing blood or otherwise, with the driver's consent". If the number looks wrong, that is the route the statute built; refusing is not.
Refusing costs more than failing
Art. 148-2(3) splits a first offence into three bands. And art. 148-2(2) sets refusal apart — "imprisonment for 1 to 5 years or a fine of 5 million to 20 million won".
In the table below, m is a million won, and the last column gives the paragraph and item of art. 148-2. Obstruction sits in the same row as refusal.
| What | Prison | Fine (won) | Art. 148-2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.03% to under 0.08% | up to 1 year | up to 5m | (3)(iii) |
| 0.08% to under 0.2% | 1 to 2 years | 5–10m | (3)(ii) |
| 0.2% or more | 2 to 5 years | 10–20m | (3)(i) |
| Refusal of the test | 1 to 5 years | 5–20m | (2) |
Read the columns down and it shows. Refusal starts at one year — the ceiling of the 0.03-0.08% band is refusal's floor, so the worst case there is the lightest case here. Its ceiling of 5 years matches the 0.2%-and-over band. So does the 20 million won fine ceiling. The statute treats making the reading unknowable as roughly equivalent to the heaviest reading.
Art. 148-2(2) is however "limited to driving a motor vehicle or a tram". A bicycle falls under the art. 44(1) ban but not into this band.
Drinking afterwards became a provision in 2024
Buy more drink after a collision and the reading taken later says nothing about the moment of driving. The provision closing that gap is art. 44(5), inserted on 3 December 2024.
It reads: a person reasonably believed to be intoxicated shall not, after driving, "drink further in order to frustrate the measurement under para. (2) or (3), or use medicines or the like… capable of affecting the blood alcohol concentration (hereinafter obstruction of an alcohol test)".
And art. 148-2(2), item 2, puts that conduct in the same band as refusal. Blurring the number by drinking more and never blowing at all now weigh the same.
It is not a second strike; it is 10 years
People call the uplift a second strike, but the word "twice" is nowhere in the provision. What art. 148-2(1) sets is a window — a person who, having been sentenced to a fine or heavier and that sentence having become final, "violates para. (1), (2) or (5) of the same article again within 10 years of that date (including a person whose sentence has lapsed)".
The sentence arrived with the amendment of 3 January 2023, after the Constitutional Court struck down the earlier clause three separate times. The statute carries all three notes at the foot of the article. The old clause added weight for "two or more" violations with no time limit at all; now there is a 10-year window.
| What | First offence, para. (3) | Again within 10 years, para. (1) |
|---|---|---|
| 0.03-0.2% | up to 1 year / up to 2 years | 1 to 5 years |
| 0.2% or more | 2 to 5 years | 2 to 6 years |
| Refusal · obstruction | 1 to 5 years, para. (2) | 1 to 6 years |
Para. (1) says the uplift "excludes a person who drove a personal mobility device". An electric scooter is outside this uplift — though para. (3) carries no such exclusion.
The statute forks on the licence
The main text of art. 93(1) reads "…may revoke the licence or suspend it for up to one year". May — discretion. Then the proviso to the same paragraph picks out certain items and turns them into "shall revoke".
| Item | What | Which route |
|---|---|---|
| (i) | driving a motor vehicle while intoxicated | main text — revoke or suspend |
| (ii) | a prior offender re-offending into suspension territory | proviso — shall revoke |
| (iii) | failing to comply with the test | proviso — shall revoke |
| (iii-2) | obstruction of an alcohol test | proviso — shall revoke |
So whatever the reading would have been, not blowing takes the licence — including for someone who would barely have passed 0.03%. Where item (i) crosses from suspension to revocation lives in Table 28 of the Enforcement Rule, which we could not obtain in the original this time, so no figures from it appear here.
Two offences means the interlock follows the ban
A revoked licence cannot be retaken for a set period. Art. 82(2), item (vi)(a) — where the licence is revoked for violating art. 44(1), (2) or (5) 2 or more times, the period is "2 years from the day of revocation". That part is widely known.
What follows it is not. Art. 80-2(1) — a person who offends again within 5 years and has the licence revoked must, in order to drive, obtain a conditional licence with an alcohol interlock fitted. Para. (2) sets the clock: the device is fitted "for a period equal to the disqualification period, counted from the day after the disqualification period ends".
The two do not overlap; they run end to end. Two years of disqualification, then two years with the device, so returning to an ordinary licence takes 2 + 2 = 4 years. Art. 82(2), item (x), puts "the period during which an alcohol interlock is fitted" among the disqualifications itself, so nothing but the conditional licence is available in the meantime.
And not even then, quite. Art. 82(3) — a person whose licence was revoked cannot obtain one, even once the disqualification has run, without completing the special traffic safety education required by art. 73(2).
Questions that remain
Does this apply to riding a bicycle after drinking?
No. Art. 44(1) covers bicycles, but art. 148-2(2) and (3) are "limited to driving a motor vehicle or a tram". What attaches to a bicycle sits in other provisions, which we did not read in the original this time, so it is left out.
I drank last night and was stopped in the morning.
The provision looks at the concentration, not the clock. Art. 44(4) says only "a blood alcohol concentration of 0.03 per cent or higher", so when the drinking happened does not enter the finding.
Surely a lapsed sentence does not count as a repeat?
The bracket in art. 148-2(1) says the opposite — "including a person whose sentence has lapsed". Inside the 10-year window, lapse makes no difference.
What if I do not trust the reading?
Art. 44(3) is the route — a driver who disputes the result may be measured again by blood sample, with consent. Refusal is not that route, and as above it is the heavier band.
Sources
Korean Law Information Center, Road Traffic Act — statute text — art. 44 (para. 1 what is covered, paras. 2 and 3 measurement, para. 4 the 0.03% line, para. 5 obstruction), art. 80-2 (conditional licence), art. 82 (para. 2 items (vi)(a) and (x) disqualification, para. 3 compulsory education), art. 93(1) (revocation and suspension, and its proviso), art. 148-2 (para. 1 the 10-year window, para. 2 refusal and obstruction, para. 3 first offences).
The three notes at the foot of art. 148-2 recording that para. (1) was amended following Constitutional Court rulings are also from the statute text.
Left for another day
The administrative penalty table (Enforcement Rule, Table 28). Where item (i) turns from suspension into revocation lives there, and we could not obtain it in the original this time.
What attaches to bicycles and personal mobility devices. Those penalties sit in different provisions and need their own look.
The hours and form of the special traffic safety education. A matter for the Decree and the Rule.
Based on the provisions as they stand in 2026. The 0.03, 0.08 and 0.2% lines and the sentences, and the 10, 5 and 2 years, are the statute's own; the arrangement of the tables and the point that the interlock runs on after the ban are what we get from setting the provisions side by side. This is a guide to the provisions, not legal advice — take a specific case to a lawyer.
