News Japanese highway tolls extended to the year 2115

This caused a stir on Twitter: the Japanese government planned to eliminate all highway tolls. Starting in the year 2115.





What happened was that the Upper House enacted the Revised Road Development Special Measures Law (改正道路整備特別措置法), which extends the deadline for collecting highway tolls from 2065 to 2115 by 50 years.

Given that the Japanese population is predicted to be down to 75m by 2100, we can rest assured that there won't be any more traffic jams in Golden Week.

push it out until we are all dead so they cannot hold you accountable. ETC card for a while then.

salyavin said:

push it out until we are all dead so they cannot hold you accountable. ETC card for a while then.

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At least you don't have to sit in traffic jams to pay any more.

Its not the tolls that bother me. Its their insanely high prices that do.

I came here from America occaisionally having to toss 25 cents into a machine to travel 10 miles, to having to pay the equivalent of like 5 dollars or more for about the same. Clearly this is not about covering raod repair. And I also feel confident that the costs of most expressways has been paid by now...or would have been if not for corruption.

Also there is that bi-annual tax I have to pay on my car, the so-called Shaken, the name being a lie. If you car is in good condition it will cost roughly around 80,000 yen if you do it yourself. The shaken bit, the car inspection, costs only about 1,500 yen only. The rest is taken up about half by a needless insurance scam and the other half is taxes, the biggest one based on weight, which signifies.....the need your car created for road repair.

So I just feel charged twice for the same thing plus over-charged in any case.

Do I sound angry, resentful and bitter? Well at least I did not get into what I would do to corrupt SOBs if I had an army behind me.

thomas said:

Given that the Japanese population is predicted to be down to 75m by 2100, we can rest assured that there won't be any more traffic jams in Golden Week.

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I am not so sure about this. More and more Japan seems to be becoming a one person one car society. I have only watched as traffic jams get worse and worse year after year where I live.

Master of Time said:

I am not so sure about this. More and more Japan seems to be becoming a one person one car society. I have only watched as traffic jams get worse and worse year after year where I live.

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Hm, true. And probably everyone will be on the road once autonomous driving technology becomes more sophisticated and Level 5 vehicles no longer require age limits or even driving licenses.

thomas said:

once autonomous driving technology becomes more sophisticated and Level 5 vehicles no longer require age limits or even driving licenses.

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This reminds me of when I foolishly believed that car navigation systems would lead to people taking short cuts and freeing up the roads. In fact, it seems they too contributed to jams because the navis just put everyone on the main roads. Low tech me is having an easier time on the shortcuts, but there are times when I have to use the main road and then the stuck is worse than in previous years.

So....I can imagine the autonomous cars being just as dumb, making it all worse.

And I still cannot believe smart traffic signals are not a common thing yet. Here I am sitting in my car not moving for far too long staring at a totally empty intersection. Its a crazy world.