On the Death by Traffic Accidents

Abstract

After the Second World War, Japan has attained rapid economic growth. Speaking briefly, this growth may be represented by cars. Not only the output of cars has grown more markedly than any other comodities such as iron and ship, but also cars have played an important role in economic growth as means of transportation. On the other side, many people have been killed by traffic accidents during this period. The purpose of this article is to consider how we have treated these accidential deaths.
Generally speaking, the compensation for the death is done through paying money. But the money is the medium of exchange and the life of human being is not a commodity for exchange. The life cannot and should not be exchanged for money. Therefore our method of monetary compensation is not a necessary way but a mere convetional one.
Moreover, as too many accidents happened every day, we accepted this method for compensation as if it is a business transaction. As a result, the compensation is done automatically on the basis of certain 'standard' by the specialists such as lawyer, judge and property insurance company. Consequently, the victim does not see the wrongdoer's face and vice versa.
This comes from the fact that we accept the traffic accidents as daily happenings, not as crimes. The death of human being forced by traffic accident has been treated on the economic principle. We may regard efficiency and convenience as more important than other's life.