In the lead-up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, priority was given to making roads that cars could drive through easily, rather than pedestrian safety. Since then, safety measures such as introducing guardrails or creating routes that are harder for cars to speed in have not been widely adopted.

If you're going to paint a pedestrian crossing on the road, can you please ask drivers to stop when someone is trying to cross the road?

Urban planning is a absolute mess. Tokyo not too bad, in comparison to suburbs. Outside of Tokyo many roads appear to have rickshaws in mind rather than cars and trucks, pedestrian safety is not even an afterthought. Blind corners, no passing room. No footpaths. Too many signals then not enough. Rail crossings rather than overpasses or underpasses. The miss named expressways are littered with bottle necks. The only saving grace is the crawling speeds of veichals off main roads that saves pedestrians.

Japan's priority has Always been the automotive industry. There are a number of roads in my town where the Driving areas have been explanded literally to the edges of buildings, with some painted while line many use for illegal parking, or that has utility poles in the middle and you have to walk into traffic to get around.

Yeah, when will we be blessed with sidewalks? No, I mean REAL sidewalks. I don't need to be reminded about those white lines that entitle us to about a foot of space. My newborn's stroller is wider than that and I'm scared it'll get hit! Plus!!!! There are bikes using it (of course going the opposite direction of traffic!) and it's always a silently tense face-off for who'll sacrifice themselves and go into traffic to let the other pass！

Welcome to Japan, a nation in the Far East, similar to some other nations in the region, where road traffic safety is not a first priority. Admittedly the number of fatalities in road accidents has continued to fall over the years, but basic provisions like side walks are still seriously lacking although this country found a way to construct a massive web of motor ways and high speed trains that have to go faster and faster. Funds and the necessary political will to create proper and safe roads just behind the major routes is still non existent. Remember the days when you started paying an extra car tax to fund railways, not safe roads and you still foot that bill every 2 years? See how traffic lights at crossings are massively ignored, bicycle riders make their own decisions on what side of the road they should ride, zebra crossings are just for those who wish to risk their lives to use them? Just a few things to remind one that in spite of all the fabulous advances and achievements one cannot forget that the signs Japan is still an Asian nation in the Far,　far East, and hopefully still developing, into a better place for our children.

Also, when you go to the trouble of painting 30 cm of uneven, drain-grid punctuated road green, in a beautiful kabuki facade of pretending that a cycle lane exists, maybe it might be an idea of not embedding a row of bollards into it, as it means the road is even narrower and cyclists, who may have been lulled into a sense of false security, have to suddenly swerve into traffic.

Whaddya reck?

Have a wider road, with a bit of it for cyclists/ pedestrians, or a much narrower road everyone has to fight for at speed?

Better get a committee together, made up of 75-year old blokes who have been nodding off in the back seat of taxpayer-funded limos for 30 years, together and decide nothing can be done about this regrettable situation. After sucking the trough dry.

Professor Ito is right.