Japan is marking World Day of Remembrance in 2007

Takako Konosu of the NGO ‘Victims Demand Disclosure of Crash Reports’ wrote:

This year we are holding a symposium in Tokyo on November 18th, to mark the UN designated World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims.

At this symposium we have a memorial service with floral tributes, then have discussions on how we can prevent second victimization in the course of the criminal justice process. We also exchange information about the criminal prosecution systems relating to road traffic victims in other countries.

www.chousho-kaiji.com

Dr Hiroyuki Imai, Director of Kishoin Children's Clinic and Coordinator of the Liaison Committee for the World Remembrance Day in Japan, wrote:

I read the Guide for organizers of the World Remembrance Day on the website of WHO, and found this document very impressive. I have translated it into Japanese to let Japanese victims know about this Remembrance Day!

We, Japanese traffic victims, would like to join in commemorating the World Day of Remembrance. We would like to organize the Day in Japan. We have already started a liaison committee between mutual groups for traffic victims in Japan to observe this day in 2007.

Professor Yukio Oguri, who started a project to control the maximum speed of cars, and is writing a book on the issue of speeding, wrote:

I am writing this mail to let you know that various events took place on the World Day of

Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims in Japan this year, and there are many people and organizations who want to further develop the World Day in coming years.

This mail is an introduction to the Japanese activities for World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. I highly respect your initiating the World Day, and hope the Day will become so influential that everybody in the world will recognize traffic deaths and injuries as a tragic result of modern civilization.

You already achieved that people of the world have such recognition, and I hope I can work with you in this line.

Professor Oguri sent the following weblinks connected with World Day in 2007:

http://higaisha-no-koe.com/world/world.htm

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/remember/chihiro/

http://kento.holy.jp/

http://higaisha-no-koe.com/world/WorldDayOfRemembrJPN0710.pdf

www.softcar.gr.jp

Events held in Japan for World Day 2007

This year, Prof Oguri wrote:

Briefly – the list of the events which took place as far as I know:

- Panel and message display of traffic victims, which was called "Inochi no Panel Ten, where Inochi = Lives, no = of and Ten = exhibition," This was carried out in Sapporo on November 12-13 by Traffic Victims Association of Hokkaido..

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/remember/chihiro/worldday.pdf tells the World Day, RoadPeace and "Inochi no Panel Ten".

- Symposium on "For Avoiding Secondary Injury" organized by the Association for the Disclosure of Police Inspection.

The symposium was held in Tokyo on the World Day. I attended the Symposium.

- Public announcement of the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims on streets in Osaka and Nagoya was carried out by the members of Traffic Accidents Victims (TAV) Net http://tav-net.com/. They also advocated the World Day through their website http://higaisha-no-koe.com/world/world.htm, and advised people to place yellow windmills on the spots of traffic death and injury.

At the beginning of last November .I set up an BBS of the World Day without knowing these events on schedule. After doing so, I understood there were people in Japan who had these schedules and I name the BBS as "Meeting Plaza for the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims" http://9005.teacup.com/worlddayfortrafficvictims/bbs.

Many victims and concerned people started to communicate through the BBS.

So many things happened after the World Day. One of the developments, which is of significance especially for me, was the attention by Japanese major mass media to Soft Car and my communication with traffic victims. I think I will send you articles on Asahi and Mainichi, two major newspapers, and 10 minutes video of Soft Car publicity on TV of NHK, the Japanese public broad cast which is comparable to BBC. These publicities were made possible only with the help of the families of the victims.

I am happy to know your interest in my coming book of Post Speeding Society. The title of my book comes from my view that people were obsessed by speed and power in the 20th century with intentional underestimate of their negative effects, and the society of the 21st should be rebuilt with technology and political/economic system based on the idea desirable environment is achievable when people give more emphasis to safety and livability. Soft Car is one of the tools for this rebuilding. My book will contain chapters of: how the century of Hard Cars evolved and what were the results; how Soft Car project has been carried out how people accepter it; how I contacted traffic victims and how the network was developed (here, the World Day is

introduced to readers); how the government and firms, especially car manufactures are developing car - information systems, called Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and what are their mistakes; and how the Post Speeding Society developed.