Kuchikomi Jun. 13, 2011 - 05:12AM JST ( 15 )

TOKYO —

Shortly after 8 a.m. on Jan 24, a certain Mrs A, a resident of Yokosuka City, was driving her car when a policeman flagged her down.

It seems that she had made a right turn at a certain intersection where right turns are prohibited between 7:30 and 8 a.m. The sign prohibiting right turns is not only small and partially hidden behind a utility pole and a tree, but its message is confusing.

“At the top, it says no right turn by large trucks at any time,” Mrs A. complains to Shukan Taishu (June 20). “Then right below, it specifies the restricted times for ordinary vehicles. I wonder how many drivers can figure this out in the short span of time they decide to make the turn. It looks to me like it’s been put there as a trap.”

Mrs A was issued a ticket (officially called a “kotsu hansoku tsukokusho” in Japanese), but she refused to acknowledge it with her signature.

Until her retirement, Mrs A happened to be a public servant, and she knew the specifics of the traffic law, which states that if an accused violator intends to contest the ticket, he or she may also refuse to pay any fines.

But a month after the incident, at about 10 a.m., a police officer rang the doorbell at Mrs A’s home and told her, “We haven’t received your fine of 7,800 yen, so I came to collect.”

“I was a little anxious, but told him, ‘What happened that morning was a clear case of entrapment, and I told them so at the time.’”

Yes, it really happened. Shukan Taishu called the Yokosuka police station to ask if it was really sending policemen to people’s homes to collect fines and received an affirmative reply.

“The National Police Agency has sent a notification to the prefectural police forces about making traffic signs comprehensible,” says driving authority Mitsuaki Tsuruta. “Moreover, in principle, paying of fines is voluntary. For police to call on Mrs A’s home and attempt to collect a fine is both intimidating and coercive, and she was well within her rights to refuse. Even if what the cops did can’t be called illegal, it’s certainly unreasonable.”

But can a person be arrested for failing to comply?

“Points are accrued for violations (that can lead to suspension or revocation of the license), but an arrest is unlikely,” Tsuruta remarks. “The police can transfer the case to the prosecutor, but unless the prosecutor is in agreement, charges are unlikely to be filed.”

Approached for a comment, the vice head of the Yokosuka police station explained to Shukan Taishu, “We called on her home as a courtesy. The deadline for payment had passed, and we thought it might have slipped her mind. Then when the officer went there, we learned she had refused to accept the ticket. If we’d known that from the start, we wouldn’t have sent the officer to her home.”

Horse feathers, retorts Mrs A. “When they stopped me at the scene, I told them I wouldn’t pay. And I refused to sign the ticket. What part of ‘no’ don’t they understand? By coming to my house, they were just trying to intimidate me. It’s outrageous.”

Tsuruta tells the magazine this was the first specific case he had heard of police trying to collect a traffic fine at someone’s home.

“But a lot of traffic fines are in arrears these days, and I’ve heard that in prefectures other than Kanagawa similar things may be happening. This kind of stuff is a shakedown, and if true, it’s a real problem!”