May 20, 2012

Akahata Sunday edition

Car accidents involving pedestrians, including children on their way to and from schools, frequently occur across the nation. What measures are necessary to protect people’s lives from such accidents?

The number of traffic accidents reached a peak of 950,000 in 2004 and still remains very high. Since 2009, more pedestrians have died from vehicular accidents than vehicular drivers and passengers. The 2011 White Paper on Traffic Safety released by the Cabinet Office shows that pedestrian deaths accounted for 34.9% of all traffic deaths, the largest in traffic fatalities of that year. The rate is three times as much as France’s (11.6%). This proves the absence of measures to safeguard people on foot from being hit by a moving vehicle.

In April in Tateyama City in Chiba Prefecture, a 7-year-old elementary school boy was killed by a moving vehicle when he and his school mates waited for a local bus to their school. Another moving vehicle killed or injured 10 elementary school children on their way to school in Kyoto’s Kameoka City.

After the accident, members of the New Japan Women’s Association (Shinfujin) Kameoka Branch carried out safety checks on roads that children use as their route to and from schools. Fukui Satomi, member of the Shinfujin branch, said, “I realized that every road is designed for automobiles without consideration for pedestrian safety.”

Japanese Communist Party member of the Kameoka City Assembly Tachibana Takeko said that she will request the city government to take urgent safety measures including prohibition of car traffic on school routes during the time periods that children are going to and coming home from school.

For 50 years until 2009, the government claimed that tax revenue earmarked for road construction was also used for the purpose of improving school route safety. However, only a small amount of the tax revenue was allotted for that purpose while a large amount was used for wasteful and improperly designed road construction.

The current government led by Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko of the Democratic Party of Japan in its FY2012 budget plans to fund large-scale public works projects which the DPJ had promised to cancel or suspend. For example, the government intends to use a total of 1.28 trillion yen for the construction of the Tokyo Gaikan Expressway, which will cost more than 100 million yen for each meter of construction.

The need now is for the government to increase the budget for such public works projects as improvement of sidewalks as well as disaster-prevention measures which protect people’s lives.