Dr. Ian Pike, BCIRPU Investigator, will travel to Japan in Spring 2025 to deliver a social marketing campaign that aims to make car rides safer for Japanese children.

This is the third time that Dr. Pike will visit Japan, this time under an Invitational Fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). Previously, he travelled to Japan in 2019 and 2023, with the support of JSPS Research Fellowships. Dr. Pike will be in Japan for three months.

"I am indebted to my colleagues in Japan for this all-round wonderful experience. It’s an unbelievable learning opportunity for me to live, work, and travel in this most beautiful country, and to have made such good friends and colleagues." —Dr. Ian Pike

The Project

The research team, which includes Dr. Pike, researchers at the National Research Institute of Police Science (NRIPS) and members of the Japanese Automobile Federation (JAF), will launch a social marketing public education campaign to educate parents and caregivers about safe child passenger safety seat use, in particular booster seats. Mito, the capital city of Ibaraki Prefecture, has been chosen as the pilot city for the project, which will launch in Spring 2025.

The design and evaluation of this initiative is based on the Preventable social marketing campaign, for which Dr. Pike is Co-Executive Director. Preventable is a mass media public education campaign based in the province of British Columbia (BC), Canada, that uses traditional marketing tactics to raise awareness, transform attitudes, and change behaviours regarding preventable injury and death.

The campaign in Mito will consist of the following elements: public service announcements on local news feeds, social media content, and brochures and posters aimed at reaching parents and caregivers of children up to about 12 years of age. This includes those who work with children, including at elementary schools and child care centre teachers. All materials will include QR codes with a link that leads to the JAF website where they will find detailed information on child restraint safety.

The three key messages of the campaign are:

1. Kids should stay in a car or booster seat until they are 150cm tall
2. A child restraint should be installed in the rear seat of a vehicle, not the front
3. A child restraint should be used on every journey, no matter how short

Researchers will evaluate the campaign at baseline, mid-campaign, and post-campaign through on-line panels and in-person surveys administered at AEON Mall Mitouchihara to assess knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of child passenger-related injuries, use of child passenger safety restraints, in addition to recall of campaign materials and messages.

“We are hoping that the messages resonate and that the campaign lands well,” said Dr. Pike. More importantly, we want to see shifts in behaviour from Japanese parents and caregivers in the use of car seats—that kids up to 150cm tall are in properly fitted and tethered car seat, they’re in the rear seat of the vehicle, and they’re always strapped in on every journey.”

Origin Story

In many developed countries around the world, it is the law for children riding in motor vehicles to be secured in a car seat or booster seat to protect them from injury in a crash, as seatbelts are designed for average-sized individuals. In British Columbia, a child is required by law to be in a car seat or booster seat in the rear seat of a car until they are at least 145cm in height or 9-years-old. The current regulations for car and booster seats have been a part of the BC Motor Vehicle Act since 2008. On average, Japanese children are smaller than North American children, which is why the campaign may see Japanese children up to 12 years of age included.

According to Japanese law, children under six-years-old are required to be in a car seat when riding in a car, but booster seats are not mandatory for older children. Observational and crash data show that booster seats are not used widely in Japan; children are often not in car seats that are well-tethered to the car; or children over 6 years of age—still too small for adult seat belts—are not in child car seats at all. Tragically, in 2024, two sisters, aged 5 and 7-years-old, were killed in a car crash in Fukuoka; neither child was seated in a child restraint.

Dr. Ian Pike’s work in Japan started in 2000, after the country passed child car seat legislation. Dr. Edi Desapriya, a former BCIRPU Research Associate, collaborated with Dr. Ian Pike and colleagues on two studies (2004, 2008) that found that the introduction of child restraint laws in Japan did not result in a significant reduction in motor vehicle occupant fatalities among children. Despite reduced numbers in recent years, there is a continuing concern that children under 150cm tall are not properly secured in child safety seats, particularly those over 4 years of age.

After this work was completed, Dr. Pike formed a working relationship with Dr. Kazuko Okamura (far right), Head of the Second Traffic Science Section at NRIPS, and together were successful in proposing the research fellowship project to JSPS.

During his first trip to Japan in 2019, Dr. Pike spoke at universities in Japan about the value of social marketing and the Preventable campaign, and its potential applicability to booster seat safety. An expert advisory group on booster seats was formed. This group provided invaluable advice and guidance, helping to shape the framework and components of the campaign plan. A very positive outcome from the expert advisory group meetings was that the Japan Automobile Federation engaged as the campaign lead organization.

In a return trip, in 2023, Dr. Pike and his colleagues created the campaign messages and plan. This included expert advisory group meetings to identify communication channels, and focus groups with parents of young children to gather their opinions on messaging and media channels. Refinement of the messages, work on the design and creative treatment, and selection of the intervention and comparison sites occurred.

"We want to see shifts in behaviour from Japanese parents and caregivers in the use of car seats—that kids up to 150cm tall are in properly fitted and tethered car seat, they’re in the rear seat of the vehicle, and they’re always strapped in on every journey.” —Dr. Ian Pike

Japan in 2025

Visitors to Japan have likely noticed that there are fewer cars on the roads compared to North America, and how infrastructure has been engineered to increase the safety of vulnerable road users. Dr. Pike has a sense that drivers in Japan are generally polite and courteous to each other, and do not drive over the speed limit as often as their Canadian counterparts.

During previous visits, Dr. Pike has had time to enjoy Japanese food, culture, and architecture. Notable experiences include visiting Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, observing the historic architecture of Kyoto, including the Fushimi Inari Shrine, and taking in the country’s breathtaking fall colours.

As for his upcoming trip, the focus is to ensure the implementation and launch of the campaign, to gather data, and to evaluate the effectiveness on child car seat use. However, Dr. Pike hopes to have time to enjoy more of the sights Japan has to offer, as he will be in the country during the cherry blossom (sakura) season (from late March to early April), and Golden Week (Apr 29 to May 5), a short period that includes four public holidays.

“I am indebted to my colleagues in Japan for this all-round wonderful experience,” said Dr. Pike. “It’s an unbelievable learning opportunity for me to live, work, and travel in this most beautiful country, and to have made such good friends and colleagues.”