Abstract: The number of fatalities (those who died within 24 hours) resulting from traffic accidents in Japan in 2014 was 4,113. This represents the fourteenth consecutive year that the number of fatalities has been decreasing. This number was about one-fourth the 16,765 fatalities in 1970, which was the year in which the number of fatalities reached a peak. In addition, the number of accidents resulting in injury or death and the number of injured persons decreased for the tenth consecutive year in a row since 2004, when the numbers were at their worst. However, the number of fatalities and injured persons and the number of accidents resulting in injury remained high in 2014, as there were approximately 710,000 fatalities and injured persons, and approximately 570,000 accidents resulting in injury or death. New targets were established: to reduce the number of fatalities to below 3,000 (those who died within 24 hours) and to below around 3,500 (those who died within 30 days) by 2015 in the Ninth Fundamental Traffic Safety Program for 2011–2015. The road transport environment is beginning to change greatly due to the change in types of traffic accident victims reflecting the aging society and the introduction of new technologies including electric vehicles for a low carbon society. Therefore, on 1 June 2011 the Working Group on Technology and Vehicle Safety of the Council for Transport Policy of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) reported a new target for 2020 to reduce the number of fatalities by implementing vehicle safety measures and evaluating their effect, and setting the policy for reaching the new target. Future direction of safety measures includes the following: 1) Correspondence to declining birthrate and a growing proportion of elderly people 2) Reduction of traffic accident victims for pedestrian and bicycle crew's 3) Correspondence to new mobility such as electric vehicles (EV), micro mobility 4) Measures against grievous accident in which heavy duty vehicles are involved.
Publication Year: 2015
Publication Date: 2015-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot