I remember driving with my grandparents when I was a kid, and we never got from point A to point B without my grandpa yelling at someone on the road. Being the naive youth that I was, I just thought the fault was with everyone else driving. But by the time I got my own license I realized that my grandpa just kind of sucked at driving as he got older.
Now, we know that the elderly can be pretty stubborn. So, how can they be convinced that maybe it’s in everyone’s best interest if they stick to the passenger seat? Well, we all like discount, so maybe Japan is onto something!
Elderly drivers in the Land of the Rising Sun are being offered discounts on funeral services if they agree to surrender their licences. Japanese authorities have been trying to encourage older people (some 4.8 million license holders over the age of 75 as of 2015) to give up driving after a recent spike of accidents, some of which involved drivers confusing the accelerator and the brake pedals. The latest incentive is in the central Aichi Prefecture, where a company that runs 89 funeral homes is offering a 15% discount for those who give up their licences, Kyodo News reports.
The elderly wanting to take advantage of it has to provide evidence that they have handed in their licence at the local police station, which is supporting the initiative. The discount can be extended to family members, including those who live outside the prefecture, the report says.
Similar incentive-based schemes are operating elsewhere in Japan, although most aren’t quite so morbid – some involve cheaper taxi rides or cut-price entry to public baths.
Japanese bath house pictured above.
The funeral home initiative is also quite a contrast to another offer announced in Aichi in November, whereby elderly locals could tuck into cut-price noodles if they surrendered their driving licences. Cheap noodles to discount funerals? That escalated quickly!
