Raphael ThysUntil the early 1970s, Japan endured a high rate of road fatalities. Now the nation boasts one of the world’s best traffic safety records. Here's why.
A typical Tokyo street displays three features that assist in pedestrian safety: a narrow travel lane, smaller vehicles, and no street parking.
In mid-August, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that the surge in American traffic deaths is continuing: An estimated 9,560 people died on US roadways in the first quarter of 2022, 7% more than a year ago and the highest first quarter total in two decades.
The traffic safety slide is a trend that precedes Covid-19, but the disruptions of the pandemic seemed to exacerbate the issue in the US, a phenomenon that observers like New York Times’ David Leonhardt have attributed to mental health issues and smartphone use: “Many Americans have felt frustrated or unhappy, and it seems to have affected their driving,” he wrote recently, adding in a tweet that “traffic deaths began to rise around 2015…around the same time that smartphones became ubiquitous.”
If stress and cell phones are causing this crisis, it’s curious why so many other countries have avoided it. Almost all developed nations have seen a decline in roadway deaths over the last decade, while the US has endured a 30% rise. As I wrote recently in CityLab, an American is now about 2.5 times as likely as a Canadian to die in a crash and three times as likely as a French citizen.
The contrast is even starker with Japan, a country known for its innovative approach to transportation (where else can you watch a baseball manager enter a stadium on a hovercraft?). Fewer than 3,000 people died in Japanese crashes in 2021, compared to almost 43,000 in the United States. On a per capita basis, Japan had just 2.24 deaths per 100,000 residents, less than a fifth the US rate of 12.7 per 100,000.
And Japanese roads are getting even safer: 2021 saw the fewest road fatalities of any year since record-keeping began in 1948. It’s quite a change from the 1960s, when a booming economy and millions of inexperienced drivers contributed to annual fatality figures six times higher than they are today. So dangerous were the nation’s streets that Japanese observers called the phenomenon the “Traffic War,” noting that annual roadway deaths exceeded those from the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894-5.
Japan is now a traffic safety success story — especially when compared to the US. Here are a few lessons from the island nation that could resonate outside its borders.
Save lives with rail
Since launching the world’s first bullet train, the Shinkansen, in 1964, Japan has been renowned for the frequency, reliability and speed of its rail service. Intercity trains are so fast and frequent that driving often doesn’t make sense: As many as 15 trains per hour leave Tokyo for Osaka, many of them making the 332-mile journey in under two and a half hours. In a car, the trip would take at least six hours.
For comparison, traveling from Philadelphia to Boston on Amtrak’s fastest Acela service will take at least twice as long, with fewer than ten daily departures per weekday. Beyond the Shinkansen, a dense network of additional rail lines provides connections to Japanese cities and towns.
A bullet train travels along an elevated railway track passing Yurakucho station in Tokyo in 2020.
“If you travel with your family for a long distance by Shinkansen, the cost is higher than using a car,” said Takashi Oguchi, an engineering professor at the University of Tokyo. “But even so, many Japanese choose to use the train because the system is so strong.” In 2019, Japanese trains accounted for 13 times as many passenger miles as Amtrak — despite a US population that is 2.5 times larger.
Rail transit within cities is equally impressive. With 285 stations, Tokyo Metro has more than twice as many daily passengers as New York City’s subway. Smaller cities offer excellent service too: Fukuoka, a city of 1.5 million in the south, has subways running every few minutes between the main city station and the airport — a trip that takes just six minutes.
With so many trains, driving in Japan becomes an option rather than a necessity. “Available land in Japan is very limited, and people tend to live in large cities like Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya,” said Oguchi. “They don’t often drive, because a well-established public transit system supports their mobility.” On a per capita basis, Japanese own 61 cars per 100 residents, compared to 84 per 100 Americans, and the average resident drives only about a third as much per year.
Japanese rail service is also exceptionally safe — famously, the Shinkansen has never had a fatal crash. On a comparative basis, driving is far more deadly. By enticing so many residents to board a train instead of get behind the wheel, Japan’s trains are literally saving lives.
Say no to street parking
Many Japanese neighborhoods lack something ubiquitous in North American cities: on-street parking.
In Japan, automobile owners must obtain a shako shomei sho, or “garage certificate,” showing that they have secured a place to store the vehicle overnight at their residence or in a parking garage; leaving it streetside is not an option. The expense and hassle of that requirement acts as a deterrent to car ownership, and an inducement to travel by other modes like transit or a bicycle. The absence of parked cars also helps foster pedestrian-friendly streets with a lively mix of commercial and retail establishments.
The no-parking policy indirectly improves street safety by nudging people away from purchasing cars that might otherwise be involved in crashes. Better yet, the absence of street parking acts as a supercharged form of daylighting, enhancing visibility for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists at intersections.
Legislators in the Philippines seem to have noticed the benefits of the Japanese approach: A newly proposed “No Garage, No Registration Act” would require Filipino citizens to show proof of off-street parking when they register a car. With Manila residents enduring notorious congestion as well as pollution, it’s a sensible move to reduce congestion and emissions — and it would likely improve road safety, too.
Make room for the minicar
For those who do drive, Japan offers vehicles appropriately scaled to urban life: the kei car, a class of vehicle considerably smaller and lighter than a US subcompact. Regulations restrict the size, power and speed of these microcars; typical modern versions might weigh around 2,400 pounds and have length of about 130 inches — some 4,000 lbs less and 100 inches shorter than a Ford F-150 truck, the best-selling American passenger vehicle.
Diminutive kei cars and vans share the road with full-sized vehicles in the the Ginza shopping district in Tokyo.
As in Europe, minicars first emerged in an era of postwar austerity, but the taste for tiny wheels endured in Japan: The kei car’s diminutive proportions help it navigate narrow streets and tight parking spots, and its price of $10,000 to $20,000 (often thousands less with government subsidies) makes it more affordable than a full-sized car. About a third of new cars sold in Japan fall under this segment. “The kei car is a second or third car for a family,” said Oguchi. “For personal and daily use people may use their kei car, but they seldom bring it on the highway.”
From a safety perspective, kei cars have a lot going for them when compared with American-style SUVs and trucks. Their light weight generates less force in a collision, and their stubby front ends reduce driver blind spots. Research suggests that their occupants are equally safe as those inside full-sized vehicles.
Despite their advantages, kei cars are seldom spotted outside Japan. In the United States they fall into a regulatory gray area, subject to a federal ban on importing cars less than 25 years old and state DMVs that can slap the hands of the committed few who try to navigate the legal labyrinth necessary to obtain one.
Still, there are signs that miniature cars could find a customer base outside Japan. Two years ago, French carmaker Citroen unveiled the petite Ami, a “light quadricycle” with a top speed of 28 mph and a price tag of 6,000 euros. French urban dwellers seemed intrigued; hundreds were sold on the first day. Citroen has said it wants to bring the vehicle to the US, with an eye toward urban deployment.
It’s possible that at least some American car buyers can overcome the traditional American impulse to supersize everything — including cars. The handful of minicars that have managed to meet federal regulations and make it to the US market, such as the Smart Fortwo and the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, were not a hit with buyers. But those available have been sold at prices far higher than a kei car or a Citroen Ami. So don’t give up on the minicar just yet.
Build cities safe for children
Research supports the oft-cited claim that Japanese citizens tend to prioritize the collective good over the individual. Applied to road safety, that orientation might help explain why Japanese road safety education campaigns seem to reduce crashes there, despite being generally ineffective in the US.
Culture could also play a role in the frequency with which young Japanese children travel independently, something that Netflix recently shared with a global audience through the show “Old Enough!”, in which children as young as two face challenges like walking to a market — and crossing a five-lane road — on their own. As Slate’s Henry Grabar recently wrote, “If the show were set in the United States, the parents would be under investigation by child protective services, and the children in foster care.”
But culture alone doesn’t explain why Japanese children walk to school or to run errands far more often than their US peers — infrastructure and regulations play an enormous role. The absence of parked cars along curbs enhances children’s ability to see and be seen while walking, and speed limits, which are typically 40 kilometers per hour (25 mph) in urban areas and 30 kph (19 mph) on side streets, are low by North American standards. Most urban streets are so narrow that drivers naturally keep to lower speeds. And with cities so dense, many people of all ages choose to walk — and drivers are used to encountering them.
In the US, some 41% of children walked or biked to school in 1969, but that figure dwindled to 13% by 2001. With a dearth of sidewalks and protected bike lanes and a preponderance of fast arterials, neighborhoods in many US cities and suburbs have been transformed into dangerous places for any child who isn’t inside a car.
Indeed, these kinds of streets are dangerous not just for children, but for Americans of all ages. As Jeffrey Tumlin, the head of San Francisco MTA, once tweeted, “I’m a childless man, and the city I’d most like to live in is one designed by women for the benefit of children.” Such a place would be much safer — and probably more fun as well.
In fact, it might feel quite a bit like traveling in Japan.