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The story
Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) has settled on a policy to make “driver monitoring systems” — which detect and warn against smartphone use and drowsy driving — mandatory on new vehicles starting in 2031. Existing models will also be required to comply by 2033.
On the thread, users debated the price hikes this mandatory equipment will bring, how the rollout compares to Europe and the US, the likely appearance of workaround devices like limiter-bypass tools, and the impact on repair shops.
Mon, Aug 24, 2:27 PM — Jiji Press
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has settled on a policy requiring both domestic and imported vehicles to carry a “driver monitoring system” (DMS) that detects and warns against inattentive driving from smartphone use and drowsy driving.
This was learned from the ministry on the 24th. A ministerial ordinance will be revised in September, applying the requirement to new models starting in 2031, and by 2033 it will also be mandatory for existing models still in production.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
And if it's broken at inspection time, that could run you ¥500,000 to fix.
Thanks to idiots, the price hikes just won't stop.
What about cars that use "cost cutting" as an excuse to cram in touch panels everywhere, forcing you to fumble with a screen for literally everything?
Those cars are a hazard on wheels.
Add a shiny new feature and it's the perfect excuse to sell a kei car for ¥3 million.
Honestly wish it'd just zap you with an electric shock.
Shouldn't ignoring it repeatedly get you reported straight to the police?
Europe's already made it mandatory, and the US is moving toward requiring it too, so Japan's just falling in line.
METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) will obviously be careful to dodge that framing.
And what does "adopted by the forum" mentioned in the article actually have to do with making it mandatory anyway?
Start today.
Hey Koro-neko (a well-known 5ch cat-persona poster), do you even drive normally?
That's some foul language for a cat lol
And if you honk the horn, it should auto-report to the police.
So if some idiot backs out of a convenience store without checking either way and you honk a warning, cops show up every single time?
Think about the hassle for both sides, genius.
But honking after the other guy's already noticed you is just spite, right?
If it looks like they're about to pull out, just slow down or stop. What a pain.
The lady who caused that rear-end crash that burst into flames was watching cooking videos, apparently.
Probably some boring YouTube video.
There are still idiots out there who mount their phone right on the steering wheel to watch stuff.
You're doing the same thing right now browsing 5ch.
These days humanity's phone IS the main unit — everything else is just an accessory.
Scanner hardware breaks down easily.
Fine if you're okay with suddenly being told "you can't drive" because of that.
That's exactly what happened in the US.
If your gaze isn't steady, the engine cuts out on its own or an alarm blares — it's got a terrible reputation.
Probably will happen.
Though it's more likely your insurance goes UP if you don't have it.
We'll lose in global competition too.
It's being mandated in the EU and the US too, so how would that make us lose lol
The world's biggest auto market is China.
Ordinary people in Europe are also starting to be unable to bear rising car prices.
Only people who can use company car programs can afford new Western European brand cars.
For everyone else, new Western European cars are out of reach.
What people scrape together to buy instead is an Eastern European car or a Chinese one.
It'll be mandatory for Chinese self-driving cars too — it's an international standard adopted by the World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations (WP29), so it's being rolled out across EU countries, Eastern Europe included.
China would probably pull it off cheaply with their own tech. A Chinese car might be an option for my next car.
Well, it's clear your Japanese isn't very good.
Give it a few days and a limiter-bypass device will show up.
Stuff like that deserves harsh punishment.
Honestly, attempted murder charges would be fine too.
Yeah, it'll show up. Similar devices, like idling-stop cancelers, are already common.
Does it just slam to a stop?
Subaru, for instance, has had this for 5 years already, and no canceler device has shown up for it, right?
It's also on the 90-series Noah/Voxy, and I don't think there's a canceler for that either.
Re: #222
Some systems sound the horn, flip on the hazards, and pull over to stop.
Probably depends on the car.
Same thing happened with home appliances — used to be repaired, then it became whole-assembly swaps, and eventually it turned into just tossing it and buying new.
You mean like headlight-aiming calibration?
This is an in-cabin monitor though — is that kind of recalibration actually necessary for it?
Background and Key Points
The mandate stems from Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), the body that sets vehicle safety standards through ministerial ordinances tied to Japan’s periodic vehicle inspection (shaken) system — which is why posters worried about a broken sensor costing ¥500,000 at inspection time, not just at purchase. The “driver monitoring system” requirement traces to UN-level vehicle regulations harmonized through the World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations (WP29), the same UN body that produced the EU’s Driver Drowsiness and Attention Warning mandate, already in force for new EU type-approvals since July 2024. Seen against that timeline, Japan’s 2031/2033 phase-in is not Japan leading the world, as some posters implied, but Japan catching up roughly seven years after Europe.
The thread’s real fault line wasn’t whether monitoring itself is a good idea — almost no one defended distracted driving — but whether mandating the hardware is the right lever, given it will raise new-car prices in a market posters already see as squeezed, versus stricter enforcement or penalties for offenders instead.
What the thread never resolves is the maintenance question it raises: in-cabin monitoring units reportedly require removal and resyncing during unrelated repairs, a burden posters compared to US mechanics quitting over long DMS turnaround times, but nobody in the thread cites Japanese repair-industry data on whether that bottleneck would actually materialize here. Also worth noting: Subaru’s own driver-monitoring camera, cited by one poster as having run five years without a “canceler” device appearing, undercuts the thread’s repeated prediction that bypass tools are inevitable.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Breaking News Plus) thread “Inattentive/drowsy driving detection to become mandatory — MLIT policy to apply to new vehicles from 2031.”
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