Citation

Koshi M. IATSS Res. 1989; 13(1): 70-78.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1989, International Association of Traffic and Safety Sciences, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

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Abstract

Roads in Japan are extremely poor in terms of both quality and quantity. This is mainly because of a very late start of road construction. Car ownership as well as car used in Japan is still much less than in other industrialized countries but traffic congestion is much worse in Japan although quite an amount of investment has been and will be made, the pace of road expansion is not quite satisfactory because of high cost of road construction, which is mainly due to the mountainous terrain of the country. Road accidents are also a serious social issue in Japan. The accident rate in Japan in terms of deaths per unit vehicle, mature is is around the average of industrialized countries at present. The problem is that the rate is slightly increasing while all other motorized countries have a declining tendency.