Traffic accidents in Japan have increased rapidly since the 1950s as the volume of automobile transportation has increased. In 1959, traffic accident fatalities exceeded 10,000 people for the first time. By 1970, the number had reached 16,765, signaling the enormity of a social problem that had come to be known as “traffic war.” In response to this situation, the Traffic Safety Policies Law was enacted in 1970 and comprehensive measures for preventing traffic accidents were implemented. These included increasing the number of officers to provide a stronger police presence on the road, introducing a system of violations, making improvements to the roads and the transportation environment, and stronger traffic safety activities at all levels of society. These efforts resulted in a rapid decline in traffic accidents that brought the number of fatalities down to 8,466 in 1979, roughly half its peak level. After bottoming out in the late 1970s, however, traffic accident fatalities rose again, exceeding 10,000 for eight consecutive years. Since falling below 10,000 in 1996, traffic accident fatalities have continued a downward trend. The number of fatalities dropped again in 2005 for the fifth consecutive year, falling below 7,000 for the first time in 49 years since 1956. Traffic accidents in 2005 can be broken down as follows: • Fatalities : 6,871 (Compared to previous year: –487; –6.6%); • Injuries : 1,156,633 (Compared to previous year: –26,487; –2.2%); • Accidents : 933,828 (Compared to previous year: –18,363; –1.9%). While fatalities fell below 7,000, the number of traffic accidents and the number of injuries, which have continued to rise and have set new records for the last two years, fell for the first time in three years. However, the situation remains serious with more than 900,000 accidents for the sixth straight year and over 1 million injuries for the last seven years. Since 1993, in addition to the statistics for fatalities that occur within 24 hours, statistics for fatalities that occur within 30 days have also been tracked. For 2005, the 30-day figure was 7,931, dropping below 8,000 for the first time since records were first kept.The ratio of 30-day fatalities to 24-hour fatalities was 1.15. (Author/publisher)
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