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FREEWHEELING OPINIONS ON
JAPAN'S DODGY DRIVERS
PART ONE

(Originally mailed to Fukuzawa in response to a message, on Thu Dec 14, 1995, modified August 28, 2002)

Brad Fast said:

>How are these Japanese drivers being killed?
>Crummy roads probably.

I said publicly:

Subject: Blame J auto fatalities on roads?! Masaka!

C'mon, Brad, don't pull your punches. It's not the roads and you know it. Japanese drivers are low quality. They don't know how to pull over to the slow lanes and let fast people pass, they don't know how to park proficiently enough to not obstruct traffic, and they have little idea how to drive to conditions. Specifically, cab drivers think any waving hand means "stop right here, right now", truck drivers like to terrorize right-turners and women, and the youth joyride on narrow and winding mountain roads.

Not to mention that the expensive driving schools teach their students to follow traffic rules that are basically unreasonable and thus designed to be broken. And once a rule is broken it's only a matter of degree, which keeps increasing with driver experience and subsequent confidence.

Dave Aldwinckle in Sapporo.

Then came the flames. One of the nicer ones to me personally was:

Date: Thu Dec 14 1995

From: Mr IFS in Australia

Mr. Aldwinckle,

Your comment has that familiar old ring in generalising the behaviour some of the "low quality" drivers that you may have encountered to make a caricature of all Japanese drivers.

Having had only a limited experience of driving in Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka and comparing that to driving in other cities of the world, I don't think that Japanese drivers or roads are that bad by international standards.

Nevertheless such personal impressions should be put aside. In their place perhaps other Fukuzawans could enlighten us with some hard evidence on international comparative stats on road fatalities, alcohol related offences, etc. and/or point to some interesting studies.

IFS
Australia-Japan Research Centre
Australian National Univ.

To which I responded:

Date: Fri Dec 15 1995

IFS wrote:

>Your comment has that familiar old ring in generalising the behaviour some of the "low quality" drivers that you may have encountered to make a caricature of all Japanese drivers.

You are quite right. My traveller's Ten Commandments say, "Thou shalt not judge the people of the country by the people who hath given thee trouble."

However, I am not a traveller. I live here, and seven years' experience (the past three intensively--300kms or more a week) driving in Japan entitles me, I think, to be able to comment on what I see are shortcomings in a system. If I were a Japanese saying this, would you declare that I am caricaturing? Sounds like a simple "shaddup, you foreigner" thing to me. I need a better counterargument than that, and you gave me that next:

>Having had only a limited experience of driving in Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka and comparing that to driving in other cities of the world, I don't think that Japanese drivers or roads are that bad by international standards.

Sure, if you want to drive in Dhaka, New Delhi, or Cairo, then Japan is better than all those. But let's talk OECD. I betcha Germany, with no speed limits on the autobahn, has better safety records (Germans go funny when they get to the old Yugoslavia for a vacation, granted). Romans drive crazily but they park better. Brits have better manners. American truckers and bus drivers are far better than the Japanese variant, I bet, just by the dearth of crashes into cars and jacknifes despite comparatively radical weather in the US. Granted, I would trust a Japanese taxi driver more than an American one, but the same is not true for any other driver around here. Road quality in Japan? They don't clear the snow effectively yet never salt the roads up here, they don't allow spiked tyres, and they put concrete telephone poles and uncovered ditches right next to the road. That's just plain stupid and should be noted as such.

>Nevertheless such personal impressions should be put aside.

I disagree. They are germane and should be thrown into the bonfire and proven wrong.

>In their place perhaps other Fukuzawans could enlighten us with some hard evidence on international comparative stats on road fatalities, alcohol related offences, etc. and/or point to some interesting studies.

Right--and unless somebody like me says something a teensy bit radical and clear, then the debate has trouble taking off. Prove me wrong, and I'll capitulate. I await DFS's response. And yours.

Thanks for your comments. Dave Aldwinckle in Sapporo

I got no response.

Then DFS, true to its nature, brought the debate up to speed with stats.

Date: Mon Dec 18, 1995

From: Ed Lincoln

Subject: Auto Accidents

I recently returned from a trip to find several hundred messages in my e-mail box. Among those from fukuzawa were several taking up the issue of trafic fatalities. The discussion would benefit from a bit of statistical precision.

In 1993, Japan had 10,942 motover vhicle fatalities. This number peaked around 1970 at over 16,000, fell to about 1980 and has since stabilized in the 10,000-11,400 range.

In 1992, the United States had 39,235 deaths. This number is also down substantially from close to 55,000 back in 1972. Note: U.S. data count all deaths within 30 days of the accident; I do not what the time limit is in the Japanese data.

This would suggest that Americans don't do as well as Japan in auto or highway safety. However, Americans own a lot more vehicles than do the Japanese and drive then longer distances each year. What one really wants to know is how many deaths occur per vehicle mile driven.

For the U.S., this statistic was 1.8 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles in 1992. My calculation for Japan from available data indicates a rate of 2.7 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles (or 1.7 per 100 million vehicle kilometers). Therefore, the fatal accident rate is considerably higher in Japan than the United States (although both countries have been improving over the years).

FYI, one-third of fatal accidents in Japan involve pedestrians, whereas in the U.S. only 14 percent of fatalities (note: this is differenct from the number of accidents) are pedestrians.

None of this is very surprising, given the anecdotres of many about driving in Japan. IMHO, Japanese roads and intersections are often poorly designed; traffic signs are often confusing or misleading; parking regulations are rarely enforced (leaving drivers weaving around parked cars in narrow roads or approaching blind intersections on the wrong side of the road to avoid parked vehicles); "sidewalks" in large parts of urban areas consist of no more than a painted white stripe on the road; and even speed limits are rarely enforced. Probably the only factor holding down the number of fatalities is the fact that congestion is so high that vehicles are often not moving fast enough to kill the occupants (versus the relatively high number of pedestrians where speed is less of a factor).

All of this relates to the issue of deregulation in Japan. Many Japanese are under the impression that they live in a highly regulated society that serves to protect health and safety. I would argue that this is most certainly not the case in the design and enforcement of regulations and standards related to road design and use where poor design or engineering and poor enforcement are commonplace.

Edward J. Lincoln
Special Economic Advisor
U.S. Embassy, Tokyo

**all opinions expressed are my own.

Ticked off by the flames (and bolstered by a bigwig in the US-Japan debate forum taking my topic seriously, I release a public answer to my critics while maintaining that Japanese drivers are in fact not all that great. That essay next. Click below.