Taxi Drivers Trying To Pick Up Kids

[Mulboyne]

Yomiuri: Govt aims to make it easy for kids to take taxis
The government is drawing up a scheme to make it easier for the children of working parents to take taxis unaccompanied, so that the parents will have more time to attend to work and other business. The Construction and Transport Ministry will provide guidance for taxi drivers to acquaint them with precautions they may need to take when driving children, such as how to use child safety seats and hints on communicating with children, as well as advice for taxi companies, ministry officials said...These days, more and more parents are using taxis to transport their children to child-care centers and after-school activities, if they have to work late or are busy taking care of smaller children...more...

If it is true that parents are resorting to putting their kids in taxis these days then you would think it might be more for safety reasons than busier work or household schedules. Which would mean that one more abiding image of Japan - schoolchildren walking home on their own at all hours - might be disappearing. Alternatively, this article could just be a puff piece for the ministry trying to drum up some business for the taxi industry.

[AssKissinger]

The government is drawing up a scheme to make it easier for the children of working parents to take taxis unaccompanied, so that the parents will have more time to attend to work and other business.

I hope they're simultaneously drawing up a scheme that allows for people to have enough time to take care of their children and live comfortably at the same time, but I doubt they are.

[GomiGirl]

When I was very little, I was picked up in a cab from Kindy every afternoon and delivered to my mother's job. But we lived in a small country town and it was the only cab driver - an enormous lady if I remember correctly. Worked for me.

[GuyJean]

When I was very little, I was picked up in a cab from Kindy every afternoon and delivered to my mother's job.

Whoa! For some reason I thought I was reading the 'Getting Infected With Japanese Crabs' thread!..

GJ

[Greji]

Whoa! For some reason I thought I was reading the 'Getting Infected With Japanese Crabs' thread!..

GJ

"Hey Mister, that don't look like no candy bar!" "Shut up kid and get in the cab!"

[Mulboyne]

More on frightened Japanese parents:

AP via Globa and Mail: Japan's indoor parks a safe bet for parents

EBINA, JAPAN -- Fantasy Kids Resort has all the basic amenities of a park for young children, with a few extras: Uniformed monitors, security cameras and sterilized sand. Visitors spray their stroller wheels with antiseptic soap. The new indoor park near Tokyo -- one of at least a dozen like it around Japan -- might seem an overly protective environment for children in one of the world's safest societies. But for many Japanese parents, parks like this are a logical, high-security response to a string of dramatic crimes against children that are fixating the culture. Fantasy Kids Resort marries such concerns with the Japanese penchant for cleanliness and a free-spending reverence for children that has deepened as birth rates drop and single-child homes proliferate...Kidnappings of children are up 25 per cent since 2001, and a spate of lurid killings -- one girl's body was stuffed in a box, another was stabbed a dozen times in the chest -- have horrified a country where parents dote on offspring well into adulthood...Despite the chilling headlines, overall crimes against children in Japan have declined 20 per cent since 2001, National Police Agency figures show...more...