Japanese is a complex language, with a lot of information that’s not openly stated since Japanese people are usually good at communicating things indirectly. The other day my family went out for miso ramen and I ordered a beer, since that restaurant had Yebisu, my favorite brand. The serving girl who was taking our order asked, “How many glasses should I bring with the beer?” and since I was going to drink and let my wife drive home, I told her to just bring one. A minute later I realized she hadn’t asked about how many glasses we wanted at all: instead she was gently reminding us to avoid drinking and driving, just in case I’d planned on having my beer then driving home myself. The new policy of restaurants taking a more proactive approach to customers ordering alcohol without a designated driver started a few years ago, with new policies put in place by the National Police Force, including a new rule that a passenger who lets another person drive drunk or the person that served the alcohol can be charged with a crime. The new policy has born fruit, with the announcement that deaths from traffic accidents numbered just 5155 in 2008, the eighth year of decline and a huge improvement over 1970, when the number of traffic deaths was more than 16,000.
New social pressures against drinking and driving are having a positive effect on the accident rate.
