05/03/2007
SUMMARY
Around the country, the drive is in line with moves to tighten smoking regulations following legal steps taken in 2003 to prevent passive smoking at public facilities. On Tuesday, Nagoya became the first of the country's 17 major cities to make all its taxis smoke-free. Nagano and Oita prefecture's taxi association go entirely nonsmoking in June. And also in Kanagawa prefecture's in July, where the prefectural association of taxi operators decided to adopt an anti-smoking policy to improve services in return for approval to raise fares in April. Still, the change is slow in this nation. According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastracture and Transport date, the number of nonsmoking taxis represented had risen to just 3.08% in 2006, compared to less than 1% in 2002. Because most prefectures have hesitated to ban smoking in cabs like Tokyo. There are some reasons why they can't ban smoking. For example, taxi operators fears getting into trouble with passengers, lower sales, and so on. Japan remains far behind the rest of the world while major cities in advanced countries banned smoking in taxis some years ago.
OPINION
Since smoking has been prohibited on public transportation systems and many other public facilities in 2003, smokers comparetively have few opportunities to smoke outside their homes. So, if all the taxis in Japan would be banned, although I really hate smoke, I may feel a little sorry about them because some of the heavysmokers would probably suffer from stress. But at the same time, I believe less smoking will be good for them in the long run. And for taxi oparators like me who hate smoke, increasing of smoke-free taxis may be welcomed so much.
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