Jiji reports that a woman, 20, in Chiba Prefecture, has been arrested for running into a group of six elementary school children with her car.

No worries - the kids were taken to hospital with “non-life threatening injuries” - but the driver may be charged with professional negligience causing injury.

Having lived in North America for more than a year now, I can’t really say that this is a case of a typically terrible Japanese driver getting her just rewards, because here in Canada, in a land where 15 year olds are licensed to drive (albeit as “learners”) and most men aspire to drive a 3-ton “light truck”, the roads are just as terrifying as the narrow, crowded streets of Japan.

Instead, the story is a case in point of the difference between Japanese and Western attitudes towards driving and driver responsibility.

Basically, in Japan, if a driver is involved in an accident with a pedestrian, a bicyclist or motorcyclist, the driver is 100% at fault, no matter what.

This may seem outrageous, especially if you’ve ever watched school children returning home from school; there’s all sorts of horseplay involved - little children in yellow hats and clunky red backpacks chasing each other and darting onto the road. It’s not unlikely that the hapless Chiba driver was in the wrong place at the wrong time - that’s why it’s called an “accident.” But let’s face it: in the eyes of a foreign driver, pedestrians and bicyclists do all sorts of stupid things in Japan.

They run out into traffic and wear dark clothing at night, and bicyclists in particular have the annoying habit of reading manga, smoking cigarettes and drinking canned coffee, all while holding an umbrella and punching in email on a cellphone as they navigate a snow-bound Japanese road constricted down to a single lane because of snow banks and illegally parked cars.

In Japan, pedestrians, bicyclists and other non-drivers are not responsible for their own safety - motorists are.

And why not? Traffic accidents are the leading cause of death for children in industrialized countries. Anything that forces motorists to drive more carefully has got to be a good thing, and I wish Canada would adopt the same sorts of laws.

Stupid bicyclists and clued-out pedestrians were with us long before motorcars, so if you’re prepared to turn the key in the ignition of a giant lump of metal in Japan, you should be prepared to pay the price.

Too bad about the Chiba driver’s future career prospects, but let’s hope the kids are okay.