Jul 24 (afr.com) - In the past several weeks alone, elderly Japanese drivers have been wreaking havoc across the country: breaking through median barriers into oncoming traffic, ploughing over pedestrians crossing the road, and smashing into other cars. In all these cases, somebody was killed.
And as Japan's population continues to age - meaning more and more older drivers are behind the wheel - the problem is only getting worse.
Drivers aged 75 and over were connected to 459 fatal accidents last year, 13 per cent of Japan's total, up from 7.4 per cent a decade earlier, National Policy Agency data show. Stopping the carnage on the roads is an "urgent problem," the agency said in a statement.
"Preventing road accidents caused by changes in the physical condition of drivers is an urgent issue that needs to be dealt with," Mineko Baba, of Keio University's Center for Integrated Medical Research, wrote in a research report last year.
"Laws and society haven't caught up to the situation of the rapidly increasing number of dementia patients."
Currently, one quarter of Japanese are 65 or older, and the proportion is forecast to reach 38 per cent within five decades.
In one of the worst recent incidents, last October an 87-year-old man crashed his light truck into a group of children walking to school in Yokohama, killing a 6-year-old boy and injuring two others.
This year in June, a 74-year-old woman killed a man driving the other way in Fukuoka after jumping the median.
One of the most recent reports, on July 15, was of a 69-year-old man arrested on suspicion of negligent driving after his light truck collided with another vehicle in Fukushima, killing a 65-year-old man.
The issue is a "major challenge" for authorities, said Hiroki Sasaki, an accident investigator and former policeman based in the northern city of Sendai.
The government is stepping up efforts to get the most dangerous seniors off the road. Changes to the law took effect in March requiring drivers over 75 to take a cognitive test when renewing their licences or if they commit offenses such as running a red light or turning into the wrong lane.
