●Nathan Shiga: September 27

Foreign tourists now have a new attraction to tempt them. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, hand in hand with expressway corporations, is offering coupons named Japan Expressway Pass effective this October exclusively for visiting tourists who care to drive rent-a-cars around via expressways while in Japan.

The Expressway Pass comes in either for 7 days (¥20,000) or 14 days (¥34,000) covering nearly 90% of the 10,000km-freeways across Japan. For reasons of traffic congestion, the Metropolitan Expressways, Hanshin Expressways and those in other urban areas are not covered. The Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Expressway is also left out. Hokkaido is not included either for lack of one-way rental services.

“Why not let them drive Tokyo and Osaka on weekdays when traffic is not that heavy,” suggest those who support the scheme. Some find it unfair to limit the pass only to the foreign tourists. “A silly idea to benefit foreign tourists who are rich enough to afford such pass”, argue quite a few others.

Benefits aside, many wonder if this is a good idea after all. Some anticipate it might lead to an increase in traffic accidents by foreign tourists driving the right-hand-wheel cars on the left.

According to a survey of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, the number of visiting foreigners who have used rent-a-cars during their stay in Japan increased four times in the four years from 2013-2017 from 179 thousand to 705 thousand. Obviously, the sizeable increase prompted the ministry to introduce the JEP.

With the Tokyo Olympiad three years away, it might be an ingenious idea, after all, to have the foreign tourists get used to our way of driving expressways.

—Sponsered Link—