Despite the downtrend in street traffic injuries, there are no way-ending cases of flawless pedestrians becoming victims of fatal injuries. The wide variety of traffic coincidence deaths totaled 3,532 throughout the country closing year, the bottom ever considering that records began to be recorded in 1948. Behind that is a development made over a long term in protection measures and improvements in car performance.
However, a deadly coincidence happened these days in the town of Otsu when 16 nursery school kids and others out for a walk were killed or injured when they were involved in a collision between two vehicles, even as awaiting a visitor’s arrival.
In Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district and the city of Kobe, many people died or were injured in accidents, whilst a few were hit using a vehicle pushed by an older adult, and others by a municipal authority-run bus that ran out of control. There isn’t any alternative but to mention that each one of these injuries is outrageous. For defenseless pedestrians to be protected, all drivers need to repeatedly appear squarely at the reality that automobiles can end up deadly weapons at any time.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe directed the government ministries and companies worried about the training session measures to rapidly ensure safety for preschoolers and other youngsters. First and fundamental, it is vital to discover the places of dangerous spots and take suitable measures. In the wake of the 2012 fatal twist of fate in Kameoka, Kyoto Prefecture, wherein 10 people, including schoolchildren, had been killed or injured whilst a vehicle crashed into a line of kids on their way to high school, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry made emergency tests of college roads all through the country. About 74,500 locations were observed to be risky as a result, and guardrails and traffic lights have been eventually hooked up.
Drivers must obey the law.
Conventional measures centered on faculty roads and no longer covered nursery schools because their children are dropped off and picked up by their dad and mom, or guardians. In the aftermath of the latest incident, the Otsu municipal authorities have decided to have nursery facilities and kindergartens post strolling routes for children and conduct on-the-spot inspections. Safety measures for regions around nursery schools ought to be taken urgently.
Police and different corporations have set “quarter 30” locations in diverse locations, wherein a car’s velocity on residential roads is restricted to 30 kph or less. In addition, speed bumps had been mounted to minimize the velocity of automobiles. Such measures to ensure safety ought to be accelerated. It is likewise essential to verify the “yield to pedestrians” precept anew. A national survey of crosswalks without site visitors’ lights carried out via the Japan Automobile Federation has proven that a mere 8.6 percent of the vehicles surveyed stopped while pedestrians were seeking to cross the crosswalk.
Not preventing constitutes an act of obstructing pedestrians that violates the Road Traffic Law. It can be said that such an act reflects drivers’ feel of brush aside in the direction of pedestrians. The percentage of pedestrians killed in traffic accidents is better in Japan than in Europe and the USA, in line with some information. Regarding the fee of such pedestrians amongst everybody killed in road site visitors injuries, Japan’s determine is 35 percent compared with about 15 percent for France, Germany, and the US. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, many human beings are journeying from nations where the pedestrians-first practice has taken root. Japanese drivers, for his or her part, must exchange their mindset.
