Japan Requires Back Seat Passengers To Be Strapped

[Shiba-Kun]

Hahaha! Living here in "Gangster Paradise" SoCal I know what I first thought when I read this title.




Japan Requires Back Seat Passengers To Be Strapped
April 5, 2008 12:25 p.m. EST

Vittorio Hernandez - AHN News Writer
Tokyo, Japan (AHN) - Beginning June 1, all Japanese back seat passengers in vehicles must also wear seat belts like those seated on the front row. But violators would be fined if they are only caught unstrapped while on expressways.

Non-strapped back seat passengers will also result to a demerit point on the driver's license of Japanese motorists. Six demerits would result to suspension of driving privileges, while 15 minus points would get the license canceled. Non wearing of a seat belt by front-seat passengers and the driver leads to a one demerit.

Exempt from the rule are pregnant women and the disabled whose disability would make it difficult for them to fasten on. In justifying the stringent regulation, the National Policy Agency pointed out fatality rate for unstrapped back seat passengers is four times higher than those wearing seat belts. The situation is also true for Japanese living overseas, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.

Unstrapped back seat passengers also are added risk to front seat travelers. Tests with dummies showed those seated in front are 50 times likely to sustain serious head injury caused by the unstrapped back seat traveler, NPA official Akihisa Miyauchi told Japan Times.

[theflipimage]

chalk it up to the slow-to-change government to start implementing this only now...

it was only recently that the government there mandated that babies be secured in actual baby/booster seats, for god's sake...

still, in a country where you normally can't even drive faster than 30 - 40 mph due to the narrow streets, congestion, and mountain roads, it is a hard thing to change poople's habits and mentality who aren't generally accustomed to even using belts (other than those riding in the front seats).

[dxnino]

^^^^ couldn't say it better myself

[kommon_sense]

Originally Posted by theflipimage

chalk it up to the slow-to-change government to start implementing this only now...

I don't know that I would blame it on slow to change gov't. Requiring someone to wear a seatbelt is a silly law. In darwin's time they would have called it natural selection. Common sense (no pun intended) says to wear one, because if you don't, you might die.

[zacknolden]

This is also good. Demeriting point on the driver's license of Japanese motorists. When a car crash, the damage & impact doesn't reach back seat passengers.
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