Japan Records 386 E-Scooter Accidents in 2025 as Overall Traffic Deaths Reach Record Low

Japan recorded 386 accidents involving specified small motorized two-wheel vehicles in 2025, according to the government's annual white paper on traffic safety released Friday. Drunken driving was blamed for 43 of those incidents. The white paper stated that drunken driving accounted for approximately 10 percent of accidents in this vehicle category.

Of the 386 accidents, 168 cases, or about 40 percent, involved collisions with four-wheel vehicles. Single-vehicle accidents numbered 87. Accidents with bicycles totaled 57, and those involving pedestrians reached 56 cases.

The category of specified small motorized two-wheel vehicles was created by a July 2023 revision to Japan's road traffic law. Vehicles in this group can be operated by anyone aged 16 or older without a driver's license. The overall traffic death toll in Japan fell by 116 to 2,547 in 2025.

That figure marks the lowest annual total since comparable statistics began 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. Accidents involving rental cars driven by foreign nationals rose to 212 in 2025.

That level had not been recorded in the previous 10 years. The government has responded by tightening rules on converting foreign driver's licenses to Japanese licenses.