世論 What Japan Thinks

iShare recently took a look at drivers’ first road accident, and found that almost half of all license holders are still to have their first.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 28th of February 2011 641 members of the CLUB BQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.9% of the sample were male, 28.4% in their twenties, 32.6% in their thirties, and 39.0% in their forties.

The figure of almost half the drivers having never had an accident may be high in part due to a lot of “paper drivers”, the name for people with driving licenses but who never actually drive. Although I got a parking ticket last year I’ve never had an accident in my time in Japan, but that’s mainly due to only driving about four or five times a year! Back in the UK my first accident was scraping the side of the car against a post as I was parking, a feat I repeated a mere month later.

Research results

Q1: Do you have a standard car driving licence? (Sample size=641)

	All	Male N=352	Female N=289
Yes (to SQ1)	75.0%	80.1%	68.9%
No	25.0%	19.9%	31.1%

Q1SQ1: How long after getting your driving license did you have your first accident? (Sample size=481)

	All	Male N=282	Female N=199
Within a month (to SQ2 and SQ3)	2.3%	2.1%	2.5%
Within three months (to SQ2 and SQ3)	2.7%	3.2%	2.0%
Within six months (to SQ2 and SQ3)	4.4%	5.0%	3.5%
Within nine months (to SQ2 and SQ3)	3.1%	3.5%	2.5%
Within a year (to SQ2 and SQ3)	3.5%	5.0%	1.5%
After a year (to SQ2 and SQ3)	35.1%	36.9%	32.7%
Never had an accident	48.9%	44.3%	55.3%

Q1SQ2: What kind of accident was it? (Sample size=246)

	All	Male N=157	Female N=89
With another car	54.1%	54.1%	53.9%
With an object	39.4%	40.1%	38.2%
With a person	4.1%	3.8%	4.5%
Other	2.4%	1.9%	3.4%

Q1SQ3: Could you calmly deal with the situation, calling the police, etc? (Sample size=246)

	All	Male N=157	Female N=89
Yes	52.8%	58.6%	42.7%
Not really	31.7%	30.6%	33.7%
Not at all	15.4%	10.8%	23.6%