NATIONAL JAN. 27, 2013 -Japan Today ( 22 )TOKYO —
A safety survey of roads around Japan’s public elementary schools has been carried out by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, along with the National Police Agency and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. According to the data collected, over 74,000 spots are currently unsafe for children going to school.
The survey was launched as the result of a traffic accident in Kyoto in which a youth, who had no driver’s license, drove a minivan into a group of mostly children on their way to school. Two were killed and eight injured in the incident.
According to TV Asahi, the government ministries joined forces with the NPA to analyze the safety of streets surrounding 20,160 schools nationwide and discovered 74,483 spots in which safety measures, such as building sidewalks and installing pedestrian crossings, were necessary. In other cases, there are no guard rails on narrow roads, separating where pedestrians can walk from the road itself.
Work was already underway in 22,714 locations and the administrators of a further 1,122
stated that they had not yet decided which measures to take, the ministries said.
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