In 2019 the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, Inc. (JAMA), in cooperation with the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF) and the Japan Traffic Safety Association (JTSA) and with the support of the National Police Agency and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, will be conducting safe-driving training sessions as well as a “senior drivers’ school” program for drivers aged 50 or older at 78 venues nationwide, from Hokkaido to Okinawa.

JAMA seeks to contribute to the fulfillment of the Japanese government’s pledge to make Japan’s roads the safest in the world, and these driver-education programs are one channel by which it is actively promoting safe driving and the prevention of road accidents.

The JAMA-JAF-JTSA Safe-Driving Training Program

• Directed at drivers who have held a Class 1 license for at least one year, the training focuses on basic but critical driving procedures, including “advancing, turning, and stopping” and “looking, judging, and acting,” through actual vehicle operation by the program participants, thereby enabling them to improve their safe-driving skills. First launched in 1991, this program drew 520 participants in fiscal 2018, bringing the cumulative total number of “trainees” to approximately 15,000.
• The program also provides opportunities for hands-on safe-driving practice in so-called slalom driving, braking under various conditions such as on a wet road surface, and hazard avoidance.
• In addition, the program enables participants to gain not only a better understanding of the Advanced Safety Vehicle (ASV) concept but also hands-on experience with advanced safety technologies including collision-mitigation braking.
• This program will be held sequentially at 28 venues nationwide, from May 11 (Saturday) to November 30 (Saturday), 2019.

The JAMA-JAF-JTSA Senior Drivers’ School Program

• Targeting drivers aged between 50 and 64 who have held a driver’s license for at least one year, this program considers aging-related physical changes and their potential impacts on driving skills. Its aim is to provide older drivers with the opportunity to assess their own driving skills in order to help ensure safe driving operations. First launched in 1996, this program drew 744 participants in fiscal 2018, bringing the cumulative total number of participants to approximately 9,800.
• This program’s curriculum enables participants to confirm basic safe-driving procedures and gain a better understanding of ASV-derived advanced safety technologies through hands-on experience with collision-mitigation braking systems, as well as with the technology that prevents acceleration when a driver mistakenly depresses the accelerator pedal rather than the brake pedal (pedal misapplication being a notably frequent factor in road accidents caused by elderly drivers). The program also provides opportunities to practice sudden braking in response to traffic signals; gain experience in safe driving through intersections where visibility of feed-in traffic is poor; and study driving skills improvement by observing videos of other people’s driving practices.
• This program will be held sequentially at 50 venues nationwide, starting on May 11 (Saturday) and ending in November, 2019.

For the Safe-Driving Training Program, at:
http://www.jaf.or.jp/eco-safety/safety/safetytraining/index.htm;

For the Senior Drivers’ School Program, at:
http://www.jaf.or.jp/eco-safety/safety/senior/index.htm.