Despite the downtrend in road traffic accidents, there are never-ending cases of faultless pedestrians becoming victims of fatal accidents.
The number of traffic accident deaths totaled 3,532 across the nation last year, the lowest ever since statistics began to be recorded in 1948. Behind this is progress made over a long time in safety measures and improvements in car performance.
However, a fatal accident occurred recently in the city of Otsu when 16 nursery school children and others out for a walk were killed or injured when they were involved in a collision between two automobiles while waiting for a traffic light. In Tokyo's Ikebukuro district and the city of Kobe, many people died or sustained injuries when some were hit by a car driven by an elderly person and others by a municipal government-run bus that ran out of control.
There is no alternative but to say that all these accidents are outrageous. For defenseless pedestrians to be protected, all drivers need to once again look squarely at the reality that cars can become lethal weapons at any time.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe directed the government ministries and agencies concerned to work out measures swiftly to ensure safety for preschoolers and other children. First and foremost, it is imperative to identify the locations of dangerous spots and take appropriate measures.
In the wake of the 2012 fatal accident in Kameoka, Kyoto Prefecture, in which 10 people, including schoolchildren, were killed or injured when a car crashed into a line of children on their way to school, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry made emergency checks of school roads throughout the country. About 74,500 locations were found to be dangerous as a result, and guardrails and traffic lights were subsequently installed.
Drivers should respect law
Conventional measures centered on school roads and did not cover nursery schools because those children are dropped off and picked up by their parents or guardians. In the aftermath of the recent incident, the Otsu municipal government has decided to have nursery schools and kindergartens submit walking routes for children and to make on-the-spot inspections. Safety measures for areas around nursery schools should be taken urgently.
Police and other organizations have set "zone 30" locations in various places, in which a car's speed on residential roads is limited to 30 kph or less. Speed humps have been installed to curb the speed of vehicles. Such measures to ensure safety should be expanded.
It is also important to confirm anew the "yield to pedestrians" principle.
A nationwide survey of crosswalks with no traffic lights conducted by the Japan Automobile Federation has shown that a mere 8.6 percent of the cars surveyed stopped when pedestrians were trying to go through the crosswalk.
Not stopping constitutes an act of obstructing pedestrians that violates the Road Traffic Law. It can be said that such an act reflects drivers' sense of disregard toward pedestrians.
The percentage of pedestrians killed in traffic accidents is higher in Japan than in Europe and the United States, according to some statistics. In terms of the rate of such pedestrians among all people killed in road traffic accidents, Japan's figure is 35 percent compared with about 15 percent for France, Germany and the United States.
At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, there will be many people visiting from countries where the pedestrians-first practice has taken root. Japanese drivers, for their part, must change their mind-set.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, May 25, 2019)
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