Many cases of accident vehicles being left in city parking lots… Car sharing “battered and wrecked vehicles” abandoned sites.

Last year, there were approximately 2.63 million car-sharing members in Japan. This was 580,000 more than in ’20, when the COVID-19 crisis began. Since the risk of infection is lower than that of public transportation such as trains, and some companies encouraged people to commute by car, even people who do not own their own cars and are inexperienced drivers began to casually use the service.

Accidents increased, partly due to the ease of use without human intervention like renting a car.’ In July 2008, an unlicensed boy caused an accident in a car-sharing vehicle. He lied to his mother, borrowed a membership card that allowed him to open and close the car door, reserved a car via a special app, unlocked the car with the card he had obtained, and drove away. After that, the screening process for membership became stricter.

A veteran driver who drove right behind the car-sharing vehicle said.

Many people don’t know how to drive, so they would suddenly cut in on me when changing lanes, and I felt unsafe. They don’t realize that they are not driving their own car, and that this creates the risk of accidents.”

At a general shareholders meeting of a major car sharing company, a question was raised as to the cause of the high number of accidents, but the company did not give a clear answer. As long as the company does not make an effort to investigate the causes, there will be no decrease in the number of battered and bruised car-sharing wrecks.