Traffic Enforcement: Revelations Suggest Police Lost Sight of Their Purpose

Editorial

14:29 JST, February 21, 2026

Isn’t the purpose of enforcement to maintain orderly traffic and prevent accidents from occurring? Boosting enforcement statistics through improper methods only breeds distrust. Police organizations throughout the nation should take this to heart.

The Kanagawa prefectural police announced irregularities in their enforcement regarding speeding violations and failure to maintain safe following distances. The Kanagawa police said it has voided about 2,700 violations recorded from 2022 to 2024. They sent papers pertaining to seven officers, including a sergeant in charge of enforcement of those cases, to prosecutors on suspicion of such charges as falsifying official documents.

The sergeant and the others belonged to a traffic mobile unit. When identifying speeding vehicles, they would determine that there was a speeding violation even when a patrol car did not follow the targeted vehicle long enough to confirm it. They reportedly sometimes avoided attending follow-up on-site inspections, saying “it was troublesome to go to the scene.”

Officials such as their supervisors were aware that inspections were not being carried out properly yet still created false reports. During the prefectural police investigation, the sergeant and others charged reportedly explained that they believed it was their job to eliminate violators, even if it meant being somewhat forceful.

This can only be described as self-righteous justice. Even though cracking down on serious offenders is important, it is only natural that resorting to fraudulent means to do so is absolutely unacceptable.

If the police, whose role it is to ensure that drivers obey traffic rules, violate the law themselves, their priorities are out of order.

Some individuals had their licenses revoked or lost their status as “excellent drivers” as a result of the fraudulent crackdowns. The prefectural police also need to refund the monetary penalties they collected. Above all, the damage to public trust in the police is immeasurable.

Such misconduct is not limited to the Kanagawa prefectural police. In 2023, the Fukuoka prefectural police revoked about 1,600 traffic violations for which enforcement had been problematic. An officer involved in these cases reportedly sought to boost his performance evaluation to get bigger bonuses.

At the Hokkaido prefectural police as well, officers were found to have falsified speed data for vehicles they had cited in 2020. Police headquarters of other prefectural police must also inspect whether inappropriate enforcement had occurred.

If there is undue pressure within a police force to increase numbers in traffic violation crackdowns, it must be corrected.

Traffic enforcement often is carried out at accident-prone locations. However, traffic violations are not always the sole cause of accidents. Issues like the absence of traffic lights or poorly visible road signs may also be underlying factors in accidents.

Enhanced enforcement alone cannot prevent accidents from occurring. The nature of traffic safety must be considered from multiple angles. The transparency of enforcement must also be increased through such measures as widely utilizing dashboard camera footage.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Feb. 21, 2026)