10% of e-scooter accidents in Japan resulted from drunken driving in 2025
Drunken driving accounted for some 10% of accidents involving specified small motorized two-wheel vehicles, including electric kick scooters, in Japan in 2025, according to a government white paper on traffic safety on Friday.Drunken driving was blamed for 43 cases. The total number of accidents involving such vehicles rose 48 from the previous year to 386.The share of drunken-driving accidents is “extremely high,” the annual report noted.Of the total, 168 cases, or some 40%, were accidents with four-wheel vehicles, while 87 cases were single-vehicle accidents. There were 57 accidents with bicycles, and those with pedestrians totaled 56 cases.The category of specified small motorized two-wheel vehicles was introduced in a revision of the road traffic law in July 2023. Vehicles in the category can be driven by people who are 16 or older without a driver’s license.The white paper also said that the death toll from traffic accidents in Japan fell 116 to 2,547 in 2025, the lowest since the statistics comparable under the current format started in 1948.“Measures devised based on the actual circumstances of fatal accidents have worked, such as raising awareness of wearing helmets while cycling and strengthening crackdowns on drunken driving,” a Cabinet Office official said.In line with an increase in visitors from abroad, the number of accidents involving rental cars driven by foreign nationals rose to 212 in 2025, a level unseen in 10 years.As part of efforts to tackle the issue, the government has tightened rules on the conversion of driver’s licenses issued abroad to Japanese licenses.
