Japanese Driving Schools Benefit From Coronavirus Fears; Public Transit Now Terrifying

Driving schools in Japan are reporting an increase in attendance from individuals who already possess a driver’s license. According to The Japan Times, the new trend is epitomized by Paper Driver School Kitakanto in Maebashi. The school has seen influx of already licensed drivers this month in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Roughly 10 percent of new students are said to have signed up as a direct result of COVID-19. As Japan’s population has a lower percentage of drivers than in North America, many are dependent upon public transportation to move about — a mobility type that’s become problematic overnight, what with fears of contagion spreading as quickly as the virus itself. To avoid sharing space, some Japanese drivers are attempting to brush up on their skills in order to feel more comfortable behind the wheel.

“Unlike trains and buses, you don’t come into contact with others in a car,” school representative Michitoshi Sonoda told the outlet.

However, others simply needed a way to get to new workplaces after their previous positions dried up due to the outbreak. One student reportedly took a lesson Thursday after quitting his job in the hospitality sector after the coronavirus impacted the hotel he worked at. Despite holding a license for 20 years, he hadn’t had much of a need for driving.

“I took the lesson because driving for the first time in a while is really scary, and I couldn’t possibly do it alone,” he said.

While we’re doubtful this will transform societies into masses of pro-car zealots, it’s interesting to see how the pandemic is reshaping things — even to a mild degree. Public transit and even ride-hailing firms are seeing noteworthy declines in ridership. In the United States, traffic has also declined immensely in response to the virus, though it’s not keeping pace with trains, buses and cabs.

For example, New York City saw a 76-percent decline in subway ridership this week, with the Long Island Railroad and Metro North seeing similar or worse declines. MTA Busses lost 62 percent of their normal occupancy volumes. Even Uber, which you’d expect to be a popular alternative to mass transit, anticipates declines in ridership averaging between 60 and 70 percent in NYC. By contrast, road traffic has only dwindled 43 percent over the same period — some of which overlaps with declines in ride-hailing.

People clearly prefer being inside their own vehicle during this health crisis. It’s hard to blame them — no one wants to get coughed on when the media says it might be fatal.

You have to wonder how this all shakes out in the long term. Young adults have proven slower to get their license than generations past pretty much everywhere in the developed world; we’re curious to see if that trend changes as more people opt out of sharing space during their commute. After the panic ends, there could be months where citizens feel uneasy about sharing space on a bus or train but still have to go to work. Despite the added expense of owning a vehicle, it doesn’t come with that particular baggage — and could prove a preferable alternative to many.

Still, it’s early days. The big lesson many take away from this could simply be that it’s a lot easier to work from home.

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