February 2, 2016
Visually impaired persons on February 1 gathered from across the country in Tokyo to negotiate with government ministries concerning measures to promote blind people’s participation in society.
In negotiations with the Transport Ministry, the petitioners called for more installations of platform fences and an improvement in braille blocks at train stations.
The Transport Ministry data shows that in fiscal year 2014, 82 passengers with visual impairment fell from station platforms and two of them were killed.
One of the participants, a 64-year-old man living in Kanagawa Prefecture, mentioned an incident where a person with visual disability in October 2014 fell off a platform at Ikebukuro Station in Tokyo. He pointed out that the platform in question has fences only on one side and stressed that such a platform can be more dangerous than one without fences because people will naturally assume that there are fences on both sides. He demanded that the central government instruct railway companies to install fences on both sides of platforms.
Another male participant from Tokyo, 73, requested that braille blocks at train stations be rearranged to guide visually impaired passengers not to stairs, but to escalators because escalators have one-way traffic and could reduce impaired people’s risk of having an accident due to physical contact with other users. He added that he has worked to realize the request for nearly ten years, but the situation remains unchanged.
One of the action organizers, the National Counsel of Visual Disabled in Japan, designated February 1 as a special day to campaign for safer train stations in order to eliminate deaths and injuries of passengers with impaired eyesight following a fatal incident occurred on the day in 1973 where a blind man fell from a platform in a Tokyo station and was run over by a train.
Past related article:
> Visually impaired urges gov’t to ensure railway stations have sufficient number of staff [November 10, 2015]
In negotiations with the Transport Ministry, the petitioners called for more installations of platform fences and an improvement in braille blocks at train stations.
The Transport Ministry data shows that in fiscal year 2014, 82 passengers with visual impairment fell from station platforms and two of them were killed.
One of the participants, a 64-year-old man living in Kanagawa Prefecture, mentioned an incident where a person with visual disability in October 2014 fell off a platform at Ikebukuro Station in Tokyo. He pointed out that the platform in question has fences only on one side and stressed that such a platform can be more dangerous than one without fences because people will naturally assume that there are fences on both sides. He demanded that the central government instruct railway companies to install fences on both sides of platforms.
Another male participant from Tokyo, 73, requested that braille blocks at train stations be rearranged to guide visually impaired passengers not to stairs, but to escalators because escalators have one-way traffic and could reduce impaired people’s risk of having an accident due to physical contact with other users. He added that he has worked to realize the request for nearly ten years, but the situation remains unchanged.
One of the action organizers, the National Counsel of Visual Disabled in Japan, designated February 1 as a special day to campaign for safer train stations in order to eliminate deaths and injuries of passengers with impaired eyesight following a fatal incident occurred on the day in 1973 where a blind man fell from a platform in a Tokyo station and was run over by a train.
Past related article:
> Visually impaired urges gov’t to ensure railway stations have sufficient number of staff [November 10, 2015]
