Police dummies slow down drivers in Hyogo

Two mannequins dressed as police officers actively promote road safety on the northbound side of National Route 176, close to Minami-Yashiro Station on the JR Fukuchiyama Line. However, these "officers" are not real; they are dolls.

Mamoru Miyata, 50, who owns M-Class Garden—a business that sells, rents, and creates animal statues in Sanda, Hyogo Prefecture—is the creator of these police figures. He placed the dummy officers and a decoy police car on his property in early May, aiming to reduce traffic accidents on the long, straight stretch of road passing through a school area.

One male figure is positioned with a speed radar while his female counterpart stands by the vehicle. These figures are exempt from legal repercussions for mimicking actual police officers since Miyata sought and received consent from the Hyogo Prefectural Police Headquarters for the setup.




I have seen such "traffic mannequins" all over rural Japan posing as school classes, traffic guards, etc. Quite spooky.

I knew a cop who used to park their police car at the end of their driveway, facing the road, when they went off duty. He lived along a stretch of straight road that a lot of people would speed along and he said that it seemed to help get people to slow down.

Edit for context: This was out in the rural areas of Wisconsin where most of the cops were permanently assigned a car so they would just drive them home.

Around Maine , we call them "police scarecrows" . Departments are so short handed , they park their empty cruisers with the roof lights on at construction sites because they don't have the manpower to sit in them all day.