TOKYO, Oct. 6, 2022—One after another, a stream of regulations is widening and accelerating in Japan. Ultimately – particularly if/when the national resident numbering system becomes fully functional, the population of 125 million should find themselves trapped in a regulation maze they never can escape.
The latest additions to the already steep mountain of regulations are the compulsory requirements for individual and business operators of leisure boats, such as those for short cruises and small fishing vessels to install the ‘driver recorder’, and school buses to be mounted with devices that automatically checks whether children are left behind in the vehicle after the driver stops the engine and locks it.
The two latest regulations are the Japanese government’s response to the tour boat sinking accident that killed nearly two dozen tourists earlier in 2022 and the deaths of kindergarten children who were left in school buses in scorching heat.
While not compulsory, the drive recorder has become a de facto requirement in purchasing a new motor vehicle in Japan. Insurance companies make it conditional in selling policies at standard premiums and those that don’t install it must pay an extra premium.
There are thousands of similar compulsory government regulations and private-sector in-kind – voluntary self-regulations. The face-mask regulation is typical: When Covid-19 erupted in 2019, it was mandatory for people to wear it in closed, crowded locations. Since then, the government has relaxed the regulation to one observed voluntarily but most Japanese people wear a mask even in outdoors. At Queen Elizabeth’s funeral services, television clips showed that Japanese Emperor Naruhito was the only foreign dignity who was wearing a face mask.
That’s not all. What is encouraged as voluntary safety precautions in most other countries are requirements imposed on the private-sector without questions in Japan. One example is the requirement on forestry workers to wear the safety chaps when using the chainsaw. Absent it, he/she would be banned from working in the forests, not to mention about a helmet.
Creating new regulations is what the Japanese bureaucracy welcomes with open arms as it often means creating industry or business lobbies to execute them – and those lobbies’ heads or deputies are often plucked from government ministries and agencies.
While the bureaucracy and politicians are willing for re-regulations, many of them resulting from accidents like the tour boat and school bus accidents, they are lukewarm to relaxing decades-old, outdated zombie regulations. A classic one is the continuing ban on Uber and other ride-share services in an apparent prioritization of existing taxi businesses. In a 2020 structural and regulatory reform reply, the Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport was mum, giving no answer to a proposal to allow Uber in Japan.
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Insight Into the Future