By KOSUKE TAUCHI/ Staff Writer
January 5, 2022 at 17:52 JST
The Asahi Shimbun
Traffic fatalities across Japan last year claimed 2,636 lives, the lowest figure for the fifth straight year, the National Police Agency announced Jan. 4.
Deaths in road accidents in Aichi Prefecture, as well as Tokyo and the northernmost main island of Hokkaido, all saw significant drops, while heavily populated Kanagawa for the first time ranked the worst among the nation’s 47 prefectures.
Total traffic fatalities in 2021 were down by 203, or 7.2 percent, compared with 2020 when 2,839 lives were lost in collisions. The 2021 figure was the lowest since 1948, when such data was collated for the first time.
While experts noted that reduced traffic volume due to stay-at-home measures implemented by the government to combat the COVID-19 likely contributed to the decrease, the NPA also cited better safety features in automobiles as well as increased driver awareness of safety issues.
A monthly breakdown of the statistics showed that last July was the only month in 2021 in which more traffic fatalities were recorded compared with the same month of the previous year. Car crashes that month resulted in 20 percent more deaths than in July 2020.
Kanagawa had the largest number of traffic fatalities in 2021 at 142 (up two from the previous year), followed by Osaka at 140 (16 more than in 2020). The figure for Tokyo was 133 (22 fewer than the previous year), 121 in Chiba (down seven from 2020) and 120 in Hokkaido (24 fewer than the preceding year).
Shimane Prefecture recorded the least number of traffic fatalities with 10 deaths, down eight from the previous year. Sixteen prefectures, including Kanagawa, Osaka and Hyogo, reported more traffic accident fatalities in 2021 than in 2020.
The number of people killed in traffic accidents per 100,000 population was the largest in Tokushima Prefecture at 4.45, while Tokyo had the smallest at 0.95.
Preliminary figures for the number of people aged 65 and over killed in traffic accidents in 2021 came to 1,520, or 4.8 percent less than in 2020. However, they accounted for 57.7 percent of all traffic fatalities last year, which is 1.5 percent higher than the previous year and also the largest rate on record.
The preliminary figures also showed that the total number of traffic accidents nationwide came to almost 305,000, which is 1.2 percent lower than the previous year. The number of people injured in traffic accidents decreased by 2.1 percent from 2020, standing at about 361,000.
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