Following a fatal crash in Kanagawa Prefecture involving a 90-year-old driver, elderly drivers are once again being urged to voluntarily give up their licenses.
But drivers unfit for the road are unlikely to give up their permits unless they have other ways of getting to grocery stores and hospitals, and the government is now looking at measures taken in other countries — especially Switzerland — for ways to secure transportation methods for elderly people who can no longer drive safely.
In the May 28 crash in Chigasaki, which killed one pedestrian and injured three others, Kumiko Saito said she had driven through the red light believing nobody was crossing. Saito passed a cognitive function test in December and renewed her driver's license in March.