Senile dementia is causing serious social problems in Japan and much of the blame lies with the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry as it attaches importance to aiding those who have physical difficulties while neglecting those with low degrees of dementia.
It is estimated that in the 2020s, 1 in 8 elderly people aged 65 years or older will fall into that "low degree dementia" category, with the potential of related wandering and reckless driving increasing.
According to six companies operating toll expressways, there were 739 cases of vehicles driving in the wrong direction from 2011 to 2014. People 65 or older were involved in about 70 percent of these incidents, and about a tenth of these drivers were suspected of having dementia. This would mean that about 7 percent of cases of driving the wrong way on expressways involved people with dementia.