Japanese Subway Behaviour

Only in Japan

Could you imagine if we had heads popping out of the ticket machines on the Tube whenever we needed help?


"It seems that in Japan, land of robots, coins are returned from railway ticket machines by a man who sticks his head out of a small slot to communicate." From Dethroner.

Also if the families of "one unders" or suicide victims had to pay the subway system for the delays caused!

"Trains don't usually stop too long after a suicide, there's rarely much damage to carriages and we rarely have to send anyone off to catch trains on different lines. In that regard, train suicides probably don't cost too much," says an employee of a commuter line. "But to make sure we can cover the costs incurred when a suicide leads to a derailment, we have to ask the bereaved families of suicide victims to compensate us. The costs are usually in the range of 100 million yen, but I've heard of a case where a family was billed 140 million yen after someone killed themselves by jumping in front of a train."

100 million yen is about 42,000 pounds which sounds more than a tad extortionate, even for a derailment. I know that Tube drivers quite rightly go through counselling when they experience a "one under" and I'm sure if they ever felt that they couldn't go back to work as a result, they wouldn't think of suing the family of the victim. Even if they could find some sharky lawyer to do this, surely no judge would award them 42,000 pounds.

I'm just amazed at how they got to this figure. Let's just hope that Sheriff Ken doesn't get wind of this, and thinks of it as a way of introducing some extra revenue.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Friday, January 05, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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