## (1) Administrative Punishment and Education Tailored to Degree of Negligence

The police are working for the strict and swift implementation of administrative punishment for the early removal from road traffic areas of drivers who repeat Road Traffic Law violations and who have initiated major traffic accidents.

The amending of the Road Traffic Law in June 2009 raised the amount of time required before a potential driver can reapply for a license after their license has been revoked due to certain malicious and reckless driving. The police are spreading knowledge on the amendment, and working to prevent malicious and reckless driving.

Table 3-5 Trends in Administrative Punishment for Driver’s Licenses (2004-2008)

Year	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Category
Total (cases)	945,327	911,001	847,721	728,060	612,163
Revoked	59,173	55,138	54,461	44,252	34,942
Suspended	886,154	855,863	793,260	683,808	577,221

Note: Number of cases of revocation does not include the number of revocations related to retesting of driving beginners and revocations resulting from application.

## (2) Improvement in Convenience of Procedures for Obtaining a Driver’s License

To mitigate the citizens’ burden during the process of driver’s license renewal, policies and measures such as the following are being enforced: issuance of renewed licenses on the day of application;; acceptance of applications on Sundays; setting up counters for renewing driver’s licenses at police stations; the omission of an ID photo from application forms; and the acceptance of renewal applications through Public Safety Commissions other than the area of the driver’s residence (limited to gold card holders).

In addition, for the benefit of disabled applicants/drivers, development and improvement of examination facilities, utilization of instructional video with subtitles, and implementation of academic examinations with hiragana readings for the kanji characters used in examination questions are among the measures being put into effect.

Moreover, in order to individually assess whether persons with physical disabilities or chronic illnesses are capable of driving safely, the police assign staff with abundant expert knowledge and are working for the enhancement of counseling activities on proper driving.

## (3) License Administration Adapted to Internationalization

Individuals who possess driver’s licenses issued by foreign administrative agencies are exempt from a portion of the driver’s license examination under certain conditions. The number of driver’s licenses issued under the same conditions in 2008 was 37,512. The police also produced a video for traffic safety education for foreign drivers, making it more available. As such, the police are striving to enhance traffic safety education based on local circumstances for foreign drivers.

## (4) Digitalizing Driver’s Licenses

IC card licenses began to be issued in January 2007, and have currently been introduced in 38 prefectures (as of FY2008). Individuals who possess driver’s licenses issued by foreign administrative agencies are exempt from a portion of the driver’s license examination under certain conditions. As there have been cases of individuals attempting to use false foreign licenses to obtain Japanese driver’s licenses, the police carefully screen licenses in an effort to prevent fraudulent acquisition of Japanese driver’s licenses.