As we reported on here and here, Japan recently instituted a new system for dealing with illegal parking. From this year the government started subcontracting the task of dealing with illegally parked vehicles to private firms employing traffic wardens.

I must say that I personally found a dramatic drop in the number of parked vehicles interfering with the flow of traffic in the Shinjuku area when the wardens first hit the streets earlier this year, but these day I get the impression that either the illegal parkers either have become smarter or they have greased the requisite palms. Things don’t seem to be to be any different now from what they were before the new system was implemented.

If you want to read another perspective on how Japan is dealing with illegal parking, check out this in special to The Japan Times by Peter Lyon, a 20-year motor journalist who covers the Japanese automotive industry.

[Are the] traffic wardens, who look like overgrown leprechauns in their bright-green uniforms with “Traffic Warden — Metropolitan Police Department” emblazoned in huge characters across their backs, making a difference? Definitely yes. Unlike the police, whose reserves were stretched to the limit, the private firms put more wardens on the streets, allowing them to cover more ground more often. Illegal parking is down and motorists are searching out metered parking bays. Since the wardens were first employed back in mid-2006, police records reveal that the number of illegally parked vehicles along 10 major Tokyo thoroughfares — including Shinjuku-dori, Meiji-dori and Harumi-dori — has dropped by 65 percent from 1,051 to 363. Metropolitan Police Department data also shows that the average length of traffic congestion on 10 major highways in Tokyo has fallen by 25 percent from 12 km to 9 km (parking a car on a street that doesn’t have bays blocks off an entire lane of traffic). Strangely, though, it appears from the same data that the average time it takes to drive 5 km on central Tokyo thoroughfares has only fallen by 1 min 5 secs — meaning it still takes nearly 18 1/2 mins to travel just 5 km.

And since we are on the subject of parking, check out this video on one guy’s parking spot in Korea.