The Japanese are... “Japanese”

 FUKUOKA -- More than 80% of Japan's accessible pedestrian signals -- traffic lights that also emit sounds to let pedestrians with visual impairments know when it's safe to cross the road -- have their noise-making function disabled for at least part of the day, a Mainichi Shimbun survey of the country's 47 prefectural police forces has found.

The survey revealed that many of the accessible signals, also called audible pedestrian signals, only emit sounds during daylight hours, often due to consideration for or complaints from residents. However, there have been serious accidents involving visually impaired pedestrians, including at least one death, during the times when the signals' noise function has been turned off.

There was a total of 37 accessible signals in nine prefectures including Fukuoka, Kumamoto and Gunma that had their audible function turned off entirely. Asked why the signals had been disabled, police forces in Kochi and Kumamoto said residents complained they were noisy.

Furthermore, though the law calls for making "daily life-related routes" -- roads connecting train stations, government offices, welfare facilities, hospitals, commercial complexes and the like -- barrier-free, the survey revealed that 6,189 audible traffic signals on these routes across Japan had time limitations.

The survey also found that there had been at least 77 injurious or fatal traffic accidents involving visually impaired pedestrians since 2015. Twenty of them were at pedestrian crossings without audible signals, and at least two happened during hours when the local signal's audible function had been switched off.