Skip to main content

Japan’s road safety gain for 2020

Japan has seen a road safety gain for 2020.
By MJ Woof January 14, 2021 Read time: 1 min
Japan has seen road safety improve during 2020 – image courtesy of Sjankauskas, Dreamstime.com
Japan has seen a notable improvement in road safety for 2020. Official data shows that the country’s annual road fatalities dropped below 3,000 for the first time since 1948. There were 2,839 road deaths in Japan during 2020 according to a report by the National Police Agency. This is a reduction of 376 compared with the figure for 2019.

People aged 60 or over accounted for 56.2% of road deaths in Japan, highlighting the risk to the elderly on the country’s road network. But there was also a reduction of 186 in the number of people aged 60 or over being killed in road crashes during 2020 compared with 2019. The largest number of road deaths occurred in the country’s capital, Tokyo, which also saw an increase in cases of speeding and a reduction in traffic volumes during the pandemic.

Japan’s population is estimated to be around 126.5 million at present.

Related Content

  • Road safety improvements have been seen in France and Turkey
    April 13, 2012
    Both France and Turkey have seen road safety improvements. In Turkey the latest data shows a slight fall in traffic accident fatalities. A recent National Police Department (NPD) research from Turkey indicates that over 10 people die/day in traffic accidents in the country. The research spans the period from 1985 to the end of 2011 and reveals that 3,440,635 were injured in traffic accidents and 152,468 people were killed. But by adding people who died in hospital afterwards, the death count is expected to
  • Europe’s road safety picture slanted wrong way?
    May 24, 2016
    The European Commission’s latest figures for road safety reveal some cause for concern across the EU. While the EU has the world’s safest roads overall, the road fatality rate has slipped during 2015. And this is for the second consecutive year also as EU road deaths in 2014 also showed an increase over 2013. By comparison, there were decreases in the European road death rate of 8% in 2012 and 2013.
  • Europe’s road safety targets at risk
    July 10, 2015
    This new analysis has been published by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC). According to the ETSC data, 2014 showed the lowest annual reduction in EU road deaths since 2001. In all 25,845 people were killed in road crashes in the 28 nations of the EU during 2014. This represented a decrease of just 0.6% compared to 2013. EU member states now need to cut deaths by almost 8% each year until 2020 to meet the target set in 2010 to halve deaths within a decade.
  • The US needs to address its road safety problems
    November 8, 2019
    The US has serious road safety issues that need to be addressed. In 2018, close to 36,600 people were killed in road crashes, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The fatality rate for 2018 represents a 2.4% drop from 2017. In addition, the road death rate/160 million vehicle km traveled also decreased by 3.4%, from 1.17 in 2017 to 1.13 in 2018. And the NHTSA says it is the lowest fatality rate since 2014. Nearly 36,600 people died on US roadways last year, a