Comedian Lee Hyuk-jae, 54, has been referred to the Public Prosecution Office after drinking and then crashing into a motorcycle that was waiting at a traffic light.
The Yeonsu Police Station in Incheon referred Lee to the Public Prosecution Office without detention on charges of drunk driving under the Road Traffic Act, police said on the 20th.
Lee is accused of driving a car while intoxicated at around 10 p.m. on Sept. 8 and rear-ending a motorcycle stopped ahead of him at an intersection near the Korea Coast Guard headquarters in Songdo-dong, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon.
The man in his 20s who was riding the motorcycle at the time of the crash suffered minor injuries, according to police.
A breath test conducted by officers who responded to the scene showed Lee's blood alcohol content was at or above 0.03% but below 0.08%, the threshold for license suspension.
Lee reported the accident to police himself immediately afterward, according to police.
In a phone call with Yonhap News Agency at the time, Lee said he had one or two drinks with dinner at a restaurant about 300 to 500 meters from his home.
"I dropped my mobile phone and was trying to pick it up when the car moved forward and the accident happened," Lee said, describing the circumstances.
During the investigation, police also considered whether to apply a charge of causing injury under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Settlement of Traffic Accidents, but applied only the drunk driving charge, citing the minor force of the impact and the limited extent of the injuries.
"Our investigation concluded that the charge of causing injury under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Settlement of Traffic Accidents would not be applied, and the case was referred to the Public Prosecution Office on the drunk driving charge alone," a police official said.