So called ‘paper drivers’ are a potential market for additional car sales in Japan, according to a media report.
The term refers to people who have a licence but don’t own vehicles and are an untapped pool of potential car buyers, Reuters reported.
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As Japan emerges from its coronavirus lockdown, restaurants and offices are practicing social distancing, but public transport doesn’t require it.
People reluctant to use public transport buying cars would give automakers a much-needed boost amid a global slump in sales.
Demand from lapsed drivers elsewhere, such as the United States, China and other countries where social distancing has become the norm, could also help soften the coronavirus blow for car makers, Reuters said.
There are no statistics about the number of such drivers in Japan, but about 45m people have gold-class driving licences, issued to people with no traffic violations for at least five years, Reuters noted, citing Japan’s National Police Agency. Many of those drivers have simply not been on the road.
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By GlobalDataThe manager of a driving school which offers refresher courses to inexperienced drivers estimated around two thirds of gold licence holders are paper drivers who have become more numerous over the years as more Japanese use public transit.
Over the past 30 years, car sales in Japan have fallen from a peak of 7.8m vehicles in 1990 to 5.2m last year.
“There’s been a pick-up in people attending courses since the emergency was declared in April,” the manager told Reuters.
Recent students have included a healthcare worker treating COVID-19 cases and an office worker who moved out of Tokyo and bought a car to get around his new town after he began telecommuting.
In a sign that the roads may be more crowded, demand for parking, particularly in central Tokyo, has increased during the coronavirus crisis, according to Akippa, a smartphone service that searches for parking spaces.
Demand for spaces more than doubled nationwide and jumped by five times in parts of the capital during the state of emergency declared in April compared with February, before the coronavirus crisis took hold, Akippa spokeswoman Ayako Ishikawa told Reuters.
“People are still commuting to work by car and they have been joined by others since the emergency ended,” Ishikawa said.
The government has noticed the increase in drivers but says it is not concerned about congestion or other issues.
“The number of vehicles on the roads is currently less than it was before the coronavirus pandemic began. Going forward there will likely be some impact,” a roads bureau official at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism told the news agency.
“We don’t yet know what that balance will be between new drivers and those not travelling because of teleworking.”
“We would welcome any increase in the number of drivers on the road,” a salesman at a Toyota dealership told Reuters.
