From 2031 a camera will watch your eyes. I counted 2,857 comments, and the thing Japan most wanted detected next was drink-driving — 793 comments. Illegal parking got 7 comments and zero votes.
"Wonderful — but why doesn't it detect the other offences?" That question is exactly what 2,857 Japanese commenters spent the night writing. They just named a different offence.
How the votes fell
Ranked by upvotes. Left of the slash is agree, right is disagree. This is where the resentment actually sits.
- 1 7284 ∕ 487 It went the same way with the automatic headlight rule. A minority drive irresponsibly, so a detection device becomes compulsory and new cars get more expensive again. Perhaps that is unavoidable, but the dearer cars get, the fewer people buy them. That said, driving around, phone use at the wheel really is everywhere. Some argue it is fine while stopped at a light, yet those are exactly the drivers who do not move when it turns green. If it is to be banned, ban it uniformly including at red lights, or you get the grey zone Japanese law is so fond of
- 2 3964 ∕ 138 I drive for a living, and the company vehicles already flag a report whenever the AI judges something dangerous. There was a time when phoning at the wheel was normal, but it is dangerous, so fitting this to new cars is a good thing. What I want far more urgently is a system that stops a drunk person from driving at all. People still drink, drive and cause crashes, and I want that wiped out
- 3 3118 ∕ 116 If you are going to make the car detect distraction and drowsiness and warn the driver, surely the same thinking could prevent drink-driving. Devices that sense alcohol on the breath and refuse to start the engine already exist. If you are taking as long as 2031 over this, please consider mandating alcohol detection alongside it, given how many serious crashes drink-driving causes
- 4 1252 ∕ 93 I want drink-driving detection made compulsory too. Alcohol interlocks are spreading in Europe and America and are proving effective against reoffending. Since the penalties were raised here, drink-driving crashes have fallen sharply — down to a tenth of the pre-reform level. But tougher penalties have their limits and have not eradicated it, so nothing short of the car itself testing your breath will finish the job
- 5 809 ∕ 127 Retrofitting would be fine, but the vehicles that most need this first are trucks, because when they crash the crash is catastrophic. Plenty of trucks on the motorway move oddly slowly or erratically. In serious rear-end cases, one driver was messaging on a phone and another was reading a recipe when they hit a car and killed someone. Not looking at the road is dangerous driving in itself, and people who put their own convenience first need to be removed
I read all 2,857 top-level comments. They carried 23,515 votes of agreement and 3,615 objections — 87 percent in favour — plus 1,437 presses of the third button, which means roughly "good point." Only 249 comments, 9 percent, ended up with more objections than support. Sorted by content, the subject of this page is not whether the device is welcome. It is what to order next. Drink-driving appears in 793 comments carrying 9,645 votes, 41 percent of all the agreement on the page; 631 of those go as far as demanding detection or an engine lock, and carry 9,488 votes, 40 percent. Price is the other large theme — 570 comments carrying 10,101 votes, 43 percent — though that figure is inflated by a single comment at the top of the page worth 7,284 votes on its own. Ninety comments testify that they already have this, in a company vehicle or their own car, and carry 7,884 votes, 34 percent. Seventy-four comments call 2031 too slow and carry 3,230 votes, 14 percent. Ninety comments about older cars and retrofitting carry 958 votes, 4 percent. A hundred and sixty-eight comments arguing for enforcement and heavier penalties instead of hardware carry 1,923 votes, 8 percent. Against that: speeding and speed limiters appear in 58 comments worth 408 votes, 2 percent; tailgating in 46 worth 118, half a percent; running red lights and indicator use in 28 worth 121, half a percent; elderly drivers and pedal confusion in 156 worth 241, one percent; cyclists and pedestrians in 64 worth 31, a tenth of a percent; and illegal parking in 7 comments worth no votes at all. Surveillance and privacy appear in just 41 comments worth 63 votes, three tenths of a percent, and worries about false alarms or nagging in 75 worth 184, eight tenths of a percent. The votes are extraordinarily top-heavy: the ten highest comments alone hold 17,601 of them, 75 percent of the total. The deepest-sunk comment of the day drew 24 votes for and 531 against.
Here is what happened.
On the afternoon of 24 August, Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism made its plan public. Cars sold in Japan will be required to carry a driver monitoring system — a device that spots, by itself, when the person at the wheel is looking at a phone instead of the road, or falling asleep.
The mechanism is this. A camera inside the cabin watches the driver's gaze, eyelids and steering inputs. Looking away from the road triggers a warning after six seconds at 20 to 50 km/h, and after 3.5 seconds above 50 km/h. Drowsiness is watched for at motorway speeds, 70 to 130 km/h. When the car decides you have stopped paying attention it sounds an alarm or vibrates the steering wheel.
The timetable is fixed. The ministerial ordinance changes in September; new models must comply from 2031, and models already in production from 2033. Europe requires this equipment already, and in March the UN World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations — the body that aligns vehicle standards between countries — adopted a new international standard, which is what Japan is now following.
I read the page roughly eighteen hours after publication, on the morning of 25 August. There were 2,857 top-level comments and 3,662 including replies. This is the largest comment section I have counted so far.
Here is how I count, for anyone joining me for the first time. Each comment carries buttons the readers can press. "I relate" is agreement with that comment; "hmm" is objection. I treat every "I relate" as a vote in favour and every "hmm" as a vote against, and I add them all up.
The result: 23,515 in favour, 3,615 against. Eighty-seven percent approval, with only 249 of the 2,857 comments — 9 percent — drawing more objections than support.
But the interesting part today is not the approval. This page is barely arguing at all. Instead, almost everyone is doing the same single thing: placing an order.
The comments, in order of how much support they drew
The top comment opens the subject of a safety device by talking about money.
It went the same way when automatic headlights and safety equipment were made compulsory: in the end a minority behave irresponsibly at the wheel, detection features like this become mandatory, and the price of a new car goes up again. […] If phone use while driving is to be banned, the rule has to be uniform and include waiting at red lights, or you end up with the kind of grey zone Japanese law so often produces. […]
オートライト義務化や安全装備義務化の時もそうだったが、結局一部の人の非常識な運転や操作の影響で、こういう検知機能等を搭載義務化されて新車価格がまた上がるという流れ。［…］
スマホ運転禁止というなら、信号待ち含めて一律でルールを決めないと、結局日本の法律でよくあるグレーゾーンが出来てしまう。［…］7,284 votes for, 487 against. This one comment holds 31 percent of all the agreement on the page.
It has two halves. The first is anger — a few people misbehave and everybody's car gets dearer. The second concedes the point: phone use at the wheel really is everywhere. And what the writer asks for at the end is not a device. It is a clearer line — decide, once and for all, whether touching your phone while stopped at a red light is legal or not. That phrase, the grey zone, comes back again and again on this page.
Then, at number three, the real subject of the day begins.
If you are going to require a device that has the car detect distraction and drowsiness and warn the driver, I wonder whether the same thinking could not prevent drink-driving. Devices that detect alcohol on the breath and make it impossible to start the engine already exist. If the mandate is going to take as long as 2031, please consider mandating safety equipment for drink-driving too, alcohol detection included, given that it leads to serious crashes.
ながら運転や居眠りを車側で検知して警告する装置を義務化するなら、飲酒運転も同じ発想で防げないのかと思う。呼気からアルコールを検知してエンジンを始動できなくする装置はすでに存在する。2031年からの義務化という長い時間をかけるのであれば、重大事故につながる飲酒運転についても、アルコール検知を含めた安全装置の義務化を一緒に検討してほしい。3,118 for, 116 against. "Wonderful — so why don't you detect drink-driving as well?"
That shape governs the whole page. Agree with the device, then immediately order the next one: same thinking, now apply it here. The number two comment (3,964 for, 138 against) does it too — a professional driver who accepts that fitting this to new cars is a good thing, then adds that what he really wants is a system that stops a drunk person from driving.
The orders came in a strict order
This is the part I find most interesting. The page did place additional orders — and it agreed, almost unanimously, on which order to place.
Counted out, it looks like this.
- Drink-driving — 793 comments, 9,645 votes, 41 percent of the page
- Speeding and speed limiters — 58 comments, 408 votes, 2 percent
- Elderly drivers and pedal confusion — 156 comments, 241 votes, 1 percent
- Tailgating — 46 comments, 118 votes, half a percent
- Running red lights, indicator use — 28 comments, 121 votes, half a percent
- Cyclists and pedestrians on phones — 64 comments, 31 votes, a tenth of a percent
- Illegal parking — 7 comments, zero votes
Drink-driving beats the runner-up by more than twenty to one. That is not a close call.
Why drink-driving? The fourth comment leaves its reasons in figures.
I want drink-driving detection made compulsory too. In Europe and America the alcohol interlock — a mandatory breath tester in the vehicle that blocks ignition if it detects alcohol — is spreading, and it is proving effective at preventing reoffending. […] The year before the penalties were raised, 2001, there were 2,994 cases; from 2002 onwards, when they were raised, […] it halved in just four years. The further increase in 2007 brought it down to 288 by 2021. […]
飲酒運転の検知も義務化して欲しい。
欧米ではアルコール・インターロック（車両にアルコール検知器を義務付け、検知したらエンジン始動不可）の導入が進んでいて、再犯防止に効果を上げている。［…］
厳罰化前の２００１年が２９９４件で、厳罰化された２００２年以降は［…］たった４年で半減している。さらに２００７年の厳罰化により２０２１年には２８８件まで減っている。［…］1,252 for, 93 against.
For readers outside Japan, some history sits behind those numbers. Japan raised the penalties for drink-driving twice, in 2001 and 2007. What drove the 2007 reform was a crash in Fukuoka the year before, in which a car struck by a drunk driver went off a bridge into the sea and three young children died. For Japanese readers, drink-driving is not one traffic offence among many. It is a memory with names attached. So when this page is asked to choose what the machine should catch next, it goes straight back there.
There is a second reason, and it is practical. In Japan, anyone who drives a company vehicle must already blow into a breath tester before setting off — that requirement took effect in December 2023. So a great many Japanese people already know exactly what "a machine measures your breath and refuses to start" looks like, and they know that private cars are the one place it does not apply. Hence the irritation with the ordering. One writer puts it bluntly: "Is the reason the alcohol interlock — structurally far more primitive than a drowsiness detector — isn't moving forward that the manufacturers don't feel like it?" (110 for, 14 against).
It is worth noticing what this ordering is not. Nobody on this page argues that the drunk driver deserves to be caught more than the distracted one because drinking is more shameful. The argument is always about where the machine can intervene: before the engine starts, the car can simply refuse. That is a line 793 people found obvious, and it is the same line the ministry has not crossed.
Speeding did not carry
There were voices saying the car should detect speed and slow itself down. This is the one that drew the most support.
For distraction and drowsiness alike, unless the system slows or stops the car while it is moving, a warning alone will not prevent crashes. Judged purely on reducing crashes, a system where a limiter engages as you approach the speed limit would do more. That would require sensors installed along the roads to control cars and other vehicles, which I suspect is beyond Japan's budget with current technology.
ながら運転も居眠り運転も走行時に減速もしくは停止するシステムにしないと警告だけでは事故防止にならない。事故を減らすという一点だけで観た場合、制限速度や法定速度を超えそうになったらリミッターが働くシステムの方が事故防止になる。その為には道路上にセンサーを設置して自動車や他の車両を制御する必要があるが現在の日本の技術では予算的に難しい気がします。153 for, 95 against. On a page where the drink-driving comments sail through at thirty and fifty to one, the speeding argument is pushed back almost to a draw. Another reader predicting that cars will eventually be limited to the posted limit drew 3 for and 5 against; one arguing that Japan should simply stop building cars capable of exceeding 100 km/h drew 3 for and 5 against as well.
There is a practical reason underneath the principle, and it is worth spelling out for readers used to other countries' roads. Japan's posted limits are low — 60 km/h on most ordinary roads, often 40 or 30 in town — and traffic routinely moves above them with the tacit consent of everyone involved, police included. A limiter that actually enforced the posted number would not catch a reckless minority. It would stop the whole country at once, and every driver reading that page knows it. That is why the argument gets pushed back by people who otherwise spent the night demanding more machinery, not less. One reader writes the contradiction out himself: build cars that cannot exceed the limit, he says, except that then cars would stop selling and the police could no longer book anyone for speeding — so much for wanting safety (3 votes for, 5 against).
So the Japanese comment section does not want a machine holding the throttle. Drink-driving is a state in which you should not be driving at all; speed is how you drive. The page separates those two cleanly.
Seven people mentioned illegal parking
And now the quietest number of the day.
Out of 2,857 comments, seven mention illegal parking. Between them they collected zero votes in favour and zero against. Nobody pressed either button.
The shortest of the seven reads in full:
Please make it detect illegal parking too.
路駐も検出するようにお願いします。Zero for, zero against.
I should be honest about that zero. Position is doing some of the work. Votes on this page are extraordinarily top-heavy — the ten highest comments hold 75 percent of all the agreement — and all seven of these sit deep in the thread, where few readers ever reach. So "zero votes" is closer to "never reached anyone" than to "rejected."
But one figure is immune to position: the count of seven. On the same page, 793 people chose to write about drink-driving unprompted. Whether or not anyone read them afterwards, only one person in 113 thought illegal parking was worth typing.
And one of the seven writes about illegal parking in the opposite direction. Complaining that enforcement is too thin, the writer adds that hiring more officers would be "far better than making delivery vans the prey for parking tickets" (0 for, 0 against). In Japan illegal parking is a nuisance and, at the same time, the daily working conditions of the person bringing you your parcel. That makes it hard to demand that a machine start ticketing it.
What I make of it
First, the shape of the question was right. "Good — so why not detect the other offences?" is precisely what 2,857 people spent the night writing. Almost nobody opposed the device. This was a page that agreed, and then placed an order. It simply named a different offence: Japan chose drink-driving, while speeding took 2 percent and illegal parking took seven comments and no votes.
Second, there is a logic to that choice. What the page is ranking is not how annoying an offence is. It is whether it kills someone. Drink-driving carries the dead with it, and it is also a condition a machine can judge before the car ever moves. Speeding and parking would put the machine inside the driver's own judgement. So the breathalyser is welcomed and the speed limiter is pushed back to 153–95. The same instinct showed up when a man was arrested for drifting on a public road: what angered that page was not the speed itself but the question of how such a driver was on the road at all. The ordering today is identical.
Third, and this is what I would most like foreign readers to take away. The state has just decided that every new car must carry a camera pointed at the driver's eyes. Out of 2,857 comments, 41 — 1.4 percent — mention surveillance or privacy at all, and they collected 63 votes between them, three tenths of a percent. The resistance this country offered was about price: 570 comments, 10,101 votes, 43 percent. One reader who wrote that the cabin used to be a private room sank, 58 for and 71 against.
This is not because Japanese people are indifferent to privacy. It is because this road has already been travelled once. Dashcams are close to universal in Japanese cars, and 90 comments say some version of "the company van already has this" or "my 2023 car already does this." The camera stopped being surprising some time ago.
Fourth, what the page actually wanted is worth stating. The top comment demands that the grey zone be closed. A comment with 762 votes asks for a system design in which safe drivers are rewarded, not only unsafe ones policed. Another asks for crash statistics before and after fitting, to check whether the device works at all. This page is not refusing the hardware. It is refusing to let the hardware be the whole answer.
Today the Japanese comment section let the state put a camera on its eyes. And then, 793 times, it pointed out that nobody is measuring its breath.
I will keep counting, and I will keep watching.
Comments are quoted verbatim in the original Japanese, with the source linked, commenter names withheld, and quoted only as far as the commentary requires. Translations are mine. Source articles may expire (retrieval dates noted). The substance of this piece is the author's commentary.