Categories
· Smokefree Policies
· Vehicles/Travel
non-USA, by Country
· Japan
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The number of smoke-free cabs has surged since a 2005 ruling in a case brought by Koichi Yasui.
Jump to full article: Christian Science Monitor, 2008-06-27
Author: Takehiko Kambayashi * Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Intro: In a country once dubbed a smoker's paradise, Koichi Yasui's decades of tireless efforts to promote smoke-free taxis haven't always been easy.
Twenty years ago, his was the first government-approved smoke-free cab to troll Tokyo's streets. But rather than follow suit, his cab-driver colleagues got angry – as did customers and officials from the government and the industry association.
"Some people were yelling at me to be ashamed of this action and get lost," he recalls. "Others crushed my car garage and broke my apartment's door lock. I was so fearful I would put a wooden sword next to the pillow and go to bed."
But times are changing.
In the past three years, the number of smoke-free taxis has skyrocketed from just 2 percent of taxis – 5,364 – to 150,192. The rate has risen to 60 percent of all cabs
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