Driving with Miss Hanako
For those needing another statistic indicating that the Japanese population is aging, the National Police Agency (NPA) has revealed that people 65 and older accounted just about half of all traffic fatalities last year.
The poll showed there were 2,727 elderly people who died in traffic accidents in 2007, making up 47.5 percent of all traffic accident fatalities across the nation, which stood at 5,744 in total. The figure was the highest since records started being kept in 1967.
Meanwhile, traffic fatalities involving young people aged between 16 and 24 stood at 670 in 2007, about one-third of the figure reported in 1997.
Before giving the impression that demented geezers are dying because they are running into brick walls in their Toyotas, it should be pointed out that half of the fatalities involved seniors being killed while they were on foot.
another statistic mentioned in the news over here last week is that there are only three people in employment for every retired citizen in japan. This of course also reflects the tradition of women leaving the workforce when once they get married. It was also mentioned that of all the countries in the world Japan has the highest percentage of citizens who are 65+ years old.
January 31st, 2008 at 9:21 pm