FUKUOKA (Kyodo) — With an increasing number of foreigners unused to using in Japan taking the wheel during their visits to u. S. A ., severa site visitors protection measures have been added to assist them amid a upward push in critical accidents. Warning signs in multiple languages and a driver-assistance machine catering to foreign vacationers are simply some of the methods to help visitors who hire automobiles and journey across us of a. Many apartment vehicle customers come from South Korea and Taiwan, wherein humans force at the right-hand aspect of the road, preferring to the left in Japan. Foreign drivers also can be stressed through Japanese road symptoms, which are regularly one of a kind from those at home and hazard inflicting accidents involving bicycles or motorbikes whilst turning left.
With the number of foreign visitors topping 30 million in 2018, their use of rental cars has jumped in the latest years. About 1.41 million foreign visitors rented vehicles earlier than their departure from the airport in 2017, 8 times better than 2011, while the figure stood at 179,000, the transport ministry said.
This surprising jump within the wide variety of international drivers has been linked to a upward push in accidents ensuing in death or injury, with the ones broadly speaking because of overseas visitors up from 25 in 2011 to 123 in 2017, according to the Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis.
Last September, yellow caution symptoms pronouncing “Slow Down” in Chinese and Korean, respectively, had been installed in the front of a protracted downward slope on a freeway in southwestern Japan — a phase in which much foreign traffic tend to interrupt tough. In the southern Japan island prefecture of Okinawa, the National Institute of Technology Okinawa College has developed a driving force-assistance machine that now translates Japanese avenue signs into other languages.
The gadget is attached to a camera positioned at the car’s wing mirror and mechanically shows the street signal translations on a screen in the dashboard. It also can offer voice warnings in English, Chinese and Korean while the automobile approaches intersections recognized for accidents. “I desire using this driver-assistance device ends in safer driving,” said Sumika Uehara, a 16-yr-vintage pupil of the college. “I’d like site visitors to bring domestic handiest satisfied reminiscences from their experience.” The faculty is aiming to position the device for business use.
On Japan’s northernmost foremost island, the Hokkaido Regional Development Bureau has been distributing loose booklets online in seven languages, which includes English and German, with factors on Japan’s street regulations. For example, there are illustrations on how to view visitors’ alerts and policies explaining that cars going directly or turning left have the right of manner. In Tokyo, the All Japan Rent-A-Car Association is planning to develop a telephone app on riding etiquette.
The Kyushu District Transport Bureau, the shipping ministry’s department within the southwestern Japan area, has also been handing out magnetic stickers for international drivers located at the rear of vehicles to expose the Japanese driver. “We’re asking neighborhood Japanese drivers to take precautions including preserving a secure distance among motors,” a reputable bureau stated of the stickers.
