TOKYO, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- The total number of fatal accidents caused by elderly drivers in Japan declined in 2019, the police agency here said Thursday, although concerns still remain rife about the number of accidents being caused by senior citizens amid Japan's rapidly aging population.
According to the National Police Agency (NPA), in 2019, drivers aged 75 or older caused 401 fatal traffic accidents, which comprised 14.4 percent of the national total.
But while the number was marginally lower than a record high logged the previous year, with 59 less cases, the latest figure remains worryingly high, in light of the rapid rate the population is aging in Japan.
The police agency's data also showed that the number of fatal traffic accidents per 100,000 license holders aged 75 or older stood at 6.9 in the recording period.
This marks a decline of 1.3 from 2018, yet is more than double the figure of 3.1 fatal traffic accidents per 100,000 license holders caused by those aged under 75, the agency's data showed.
Among the 401 fatal accidents, 77 involved collisions with inanimate objects such as utility poles and road signs, while 67 collisions involved other vehicles when overtaking or passing. Of the total, there were 60 head-on collisions as well as 55 involving cars veering of roads, the data showed.
Regarding 385 fatal accidents not involving motorbikes, 107 of them were down to driver error, the NPA also said.
Fifty three of these were found to involve mistaken steering maneuvers, while 28 fatal accidents were due to the driver mistaking the accelerator pedal for the brake.
The NPA is planning to submit a bill to revise the law so that elderly drivers who already have records of driving violations will have to have their driving ability retested when they apply to renew their licenses.
A new license will also be introduced, the NPA said, which will limit certain drivers to only operating cars equipped with special safety features, such as automatic brake systems to prevent unintentional acceleration.
In April last year, a fatal car crash which killed a three-year-old girl and her mother shocked the nation and punctuated the need for the preventative measures to be taken.
The accident involved an 88-year-old, ex-senior bureaucrat, who was found to have driven his car through pedestrian crossings in Tokyo's Ikebukuro district, hitting 31-year-old Mana Matsunaga and her three-year-old daughter Riko who were riding on a bicycle.
The mother and daughter were killed and eight others, including the driver and his wife who was in the passenger seat at the time, were injured.
The elderly driver had said of the crash that he may have mistaken the gas pedal for the brake.
Other high profile cases in recent years involved a woman in her 70s crashing her car through a hospital window and into the lobby of hospital in Oita Prefecture in southwestern Japan, leaving 13 people injured.
Several pedestrians, meanwhile, were struck on a road in a city southwest of Tokyo, by a driver in her 90s. The accident, which killed one person and injured six others, was the result of the elderly female driver pulling out from a company building and onto a main street, while ignoring traffic signals.
In doing so, she struck four people who were on a crossing walk and two other people who were on a side street.
Such accidents caused by the elderly and the fact that Japan's "silver tsunami" demographic crisis is set to worsen has made the topic of elderly drivers a national talking point, with such accidents rarely out of the headlines.
By 2023, the number of driving license holders aged 75 and older is expected to reach 7.17 million, jumping from 5.64 million senior-aged drivers as of the end of 2018, official statistics have shown.
