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The story
According to a Kyodo News report, a growing number of taxi and bus operators are moving to explicitly add clauses to their terms of carriage allowing them to refuse service to “kasuhara” (customer harassment) passengers. The move comes amid a string of cases where shouting and intimidating behavior have made it unsafe for drivers to keep working. On 5ch, opinions were divided over where to draw the line between a legitimate complaint and customer harassment, as well as how fares and safety should be handled when a passenger is refused service. Some pushed back, arguing it would go too far to brand every complaint about delays or poor service as harassment.
[Exclusive] Taxis, Buses to Add Clause Allowing “Refusal of Service” to Kasuhara Customers
Published 10/15 (Thu) 21:00
Kyodo News
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
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"Please get off" is fine and all, but what happens to the fare at that point?
What if the driver gets hit back?
Plenty of unresolved issues here.
Trying to map out exactly where that line is is creepy on its own.
If you just act normal, nobody calls you a harasser.
It's not "how far can I push it" — normal people just don't do this stuff in the first place.
>2. Four key points for judging this
① Is there a legitimate reason for the request?
Asking for an explanation about a fare mistake, concerns over unsafe driving, or poor service is normally a legitimate complaint.
② Has the tone gone too far?
Strongly expressing dissatisfaction is different from making threats, insults, or personal attacks. Simply being angry doesn't automatically make it harassment.
③ Does the person keep it up even after being warned?
A single heated outburst is judged differently from someone who keeps hurling abuse or intimidating staff even after being told to stop.
④ Is it disrupting safety or operations?
Shouting intimidatingly while the vehicle is moving, interfering with the driver's controls, or refusing to get off and camping out for a long time — these are serious safety problems too.
That said, these points aren't meant to be applied mechanically one by one. Violence or concrete threats can be serious problems even without repetition.
Maybe that's exactly why companies keep tough-looking drivers around, for customers like this.
It's died down a lot lately, but back in the day there were often actual fistfights breaking out at stations and places like that.
Yeah, drivers used to get into shouting matches with each other over cutting in line.
Once the pandemic ended, trains got way more chaotic/dangerous. Part of the reason is that even as passengers came back, the railway companies never restored full service frequency — like the Keihin-Tohoku Line yesterday.
I got on heading south from Shinagawa, and in the packed car I could hear people yelling "Oraaa!" (an aggressive, threatening shout) at each other — genuinely scary.
Just don't let it be treated as an excuse — punish it as a plain fact, that's all that's needed, right?
Even with completely ordinary salarymen, I'm curious what kind of upbringing produces that.
Hunt the weak, avoid the strong — that's just the law of nature. They're just living their normal life by it.
That's basically public transit itself these days. JR East and Toei Bus drivers have gotten really nasty lately — it's blatantly obvious they're thinking "you need us just to get to work, so you've got no choice."
It's just pouring fuel on a service where the provider already holds all the cards, like some feudal-lord business.
Probably got bullied their whole life, huh?
Dunno though.
That's fine by me.
Passengers should just sit there quietly and ride.
No, that's just messed up.
It's not even the last bus of the night to begin with — the malicious complainer is the one in the wrong.
Summary of the news:
• When/where: Late February 2026, aboard a Toei bus departing from Tokyo Big Sight.
• What happened: As the bus was pulling out, a passenger trying to board last had the door close on them (or right in front of them), and shouted at the driver, "You could see me! Why'd you close it?!"
• Why service was suspended: The driver, shaken by the intense shouting, reported, "(Given this intimidating behavior causing panic and severe stress) I'm not in a mental state to drive safely." After contacting the depot and getting permission, the bus was pulled from service on the spot, and all passengers had to transfer to the next bus.
Ah, that one's partly the driver's fault too — if you can see the person, you shouldn't close the door on them.
"Just take the next bus" isn't always good enough either — buses on that route run infrequently, and missing one can genuinely be a disaster.
Honestly, if that kind of thing is allowed to fly, it's on the same level as me, if I were a convenience store clerk, saying "you walking in made me feel sick, so I'm closing up and going home."
so what happens if a taxi driver refuses you a ride while saying something like that?
Go ahead and cancel them socially, one by one.
But what actually happens is that wealthier customers and the more profitable riders are the ones who stop using it.
The quiet types who never complain just silently stop riding — that's all.
There are probably plenty of rude drivers and station staff lurking in this very thread too — same goes for X (Twitter).
And it's always exactly those types who turn into complainers themselves the moment they're a customer of some other service.
If they run on time and do their job properly and customers still complain, sure, that's harassment — but a company that runs late and then acts like "well, there's another bus coming anyway" is harassment in reverse.
That's just the official line. The real benefit of putting up with trains and buses is simply that the timing is predictable, plus avoiding drunk driving — that's about it.
Honestly, if they're going to hide behind that excuse to brush off delays, they might as well change the law so the liability for delay-related damages falls on the provider.
When a delay forces me into an extra taxi ride, I genuinely start wondering if the railway company and the taxi company are in on it together.
Passenger Motor Vehicle Transport Business Operation Rules, Article 50:
If a driver judges that "continuing to operate is dangerous," they can suspend operation on their own judgment.
If a passenger is asked to please get off and still refuses, that constitutes the crime of forcible obstruction of business.
But the provider should still be held to a best-effort duty to minimize the disadvantage to customers.
Instead of just "sorry, we're delayed," they could say "we're delayed, but here's a detour," or immediately lay out whether taking the detour or just waiting is the better move. There's plenty they could actually do.
Under the Road Transportation Act and the Passenger Motor Vehicle Transport Business Operation Rules:
There's no direct provision requiring compensation to passengers for delays. Since public transportation inherently operates with delay risk built in, operators generally aren't liable for damages beyond the fare itself for ordinary delays (traffic, bad weather, etc.) that cause lateness or lost opportunities (missing a flight, being late to a meeting, etc.). Refunds and the like are basically handled according to each operator's own "terms of carriage."
You shouldn't assume that repeating that like a copy-paste answer settles anything.
From my daily commuting experience, this system already feels like it's running on half a tank of smoke.
Then let me ask — if something delivered to you arrived broken, or a promise was completely broken, would you be satisfied being told the same kind of thing?
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Measures against “kasuhara” (customer harassment) have been steadily strengthened in recent years across customer-facing industries like retail, healthcare, and public transportation, and spelling it out explicitly in terms of carriage is an extension of that trend. The main point of disagreement in the thread was the difficulty of drawing the line between a legitimate complaint and harassment, since it involves multiple intertwined factors — the content of the request, the tone used, whether it’s repeated, and the impact on safety — that resist a simple cutoff. The thread also didn’t dig deeply into practical issues specific to the transport industry, such as how fares get settled after a refusal of service, or how to secure driver safety when intimidating behavior continues. Since the concrete judgment of what counts as harassment is largely left to each operator’s own terms of carriage and internal standards, how to keep that application consistent across operators looks set to be the next point of debate.
*This article is composed as an excerpt/summary from the 5ch (News Flash+) thread “[Kasuhara] Taxis, Buses to Add Clause Allowing “Refusal of Service” to Kasuhara Customers.”
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