Trial of online lecture for Japanese driver’s license renewal broadened, this driver's experience

From October 2 a trial system allowing so-called “excellent” drivers in Japan renewing their license to undertake a compulsory training lecture online was broadened to include drivers holding a general category license.

The system, which is being trialed in Chiba, Hokkaido, Kyoto and Yamaguchi prefectures, was launched in February 2022 limited to those drivers holding a gold category license, the highest category of license given to experienced drivers without any traffic violations.  

Drivers also have to be under 70 years of age and hold a My Number identification card in order to qualify. 

Under the system drivers who had received notification of their period of license renewal could watch the compulsory training lecture online before going to their regional driver’s license center (unten menkyo center / 運転免許センター) or police station to undertake the remaining renewal procedures and collect their new license cards. 

Outside of the new system, lectures and videos have to be attended onsite in a face-to-face environment, usually at the end of renewal procedures along with other applicants while new license cards are being prepared. 

Under the new development of the trail, those general category license holders whose birthday falls on or after October 1 will be able access the online training lecture. Those drivers holding their first license - the green category - are yet to qualify for the trial.  

One of the City-Cost team, a gold driver’s license holder, recently entered their license renewal period and as a resident of one of the trial prefectures opted to undertake the online training lecture. 

What follows is their personal account of the proceedings and how they understood them, to the extent that they could. 

When my notification of driver’s license renewal arrived in the post - five years since the last renewal - I thought that as a gold license holder I might go to the local police station just down the road to do the paperwork rather than have to trek out to the driver’s license center and endure the chaos that typically unfolds in those places.

I knew that by going to the police station I wouldn’t be able to collect the renewed license on the same day but I was prepared to go back and collect it later if that meant not having to spend at least half a day at the driver's license center.

Anyone who holds a Japanese driver’s license will likely be familiar with the experience of the driver’s license center as one of being shuffled along with hundreds of other drivers between a series of dystopian queues as you fill in forms, sign, and stamp your way through an obstacle course of eye tests, checking counters, and photo booths. And when you’ve escaped from that you have to endure the most awkward part of the experience, the training lecture. 

I’m not disparaging the training lecture. In fact, I’m pretty sure there are plenty of gold standard drivers out there who could do with starting from scratch.  

For this driver in Japan though, the lecture has proved to be an uncomfortable experience - I’ve always been the only foreigner in the room, the Japanese is hard to keep up with, and I have largely spent the time fending off a cold sweat at the image of being quizzed about the content at the end. (In fact, I’ve never experienced such a quiz and I’ve even seen fellow drivers openly fall asleep during the lecture.) 

Still, with the lecture, the queueing, and the barely concealed irritation of pretty much everyone present, going to a driver’s license center ranks second behind visiting an immigration center to extend residency as among the worst experiences of life-in-Japan admin for me.

The online lecture experience seems to work like this... 

I accessed the system via the website of the prefectural police on my smartphone.  

I logged in using details from my existing license and / or the notification card I received in the post.  

Then I had to “read” my My Number ID card with the smartphone camera and enter the password that I had set at the time of receiving the card. 

It was pretty much that simple. All in Japanese, but simple enough. 

The lecture was half an hour. I’ve heard that the lecture for general category license holders is one hour. 

The lecture was broken down into three parts. After each, the system asked that it might take a picture of my face in order to verify that it is, in fact, me watching the lecture. The only answer is “yes,” otherwise you can’t press on with the proceedings.  

According to information on the prefectural police website, this is how the photo is used. My own translation …

The participant's face must be photographed three times during the training video. Participants in the general driver training course are also required to have their own facial image taken once during the aptitude test after watching the training video.

The camera is activated when the participant checks the box to agree to the taking of the photograph. The participant actually presses the button to take the photograph.

The camera is only activated when the check box is ticked for consent and is not constantly filming or recording.

Only the face is captured, not the background.

There is no automatic facial recognition.

The camera can check the facial image it has taken and can ask for a reshoot if needed.

The system automatically deletes the image after the period required for license renewal has elapsed.

The facial image taken during the online course is not the same as the photograph on the driver's license.

The purpose of taking a facial image is to confirm course attendance. Please remove masks, sunglasses, hats and other items that may prevent identification. 

As for the content of the lecture, well, it’s not a live, streaming lecture for a start. It looks more like an educational video. Much of it was used to cover case studies of common forms of accident involving drivers and how they occur. It also looked at what the responsibilities of the driver are in the event of an accident. 

After each section, there was a kind of pop quiz multiple-choice question which, if you are a native Japanese speaker, should really be filed under “elementary.” For the non-native speaker though, reading and understanding the question is probably going to be the hardest part. The answers seemed to be common sense more than anything. Still, I don’t think these questions have any bearing on the renewal of the license.

You might have noticed from the list of points above, that general category license holders are being asked to take some kind of aptitude test at the end of their one-hour lecture. Now, that is the kind of thing to bring me out in a cold sweat, but let’s remember, this is just a trail. The situation could change, for better or worse.

And that was about it for the online lecture. The system told me I was finished and presented me with a screen that looked something akin to a certificate. You’re not required to print it or keep it as evidence. There was no reference number, just my name, prefecture of residence, license category, and date. I took a screenshot just in case. 

To the police station or driver’s license center!

So, just to stress. The only thing the online trial covers is the lecture. Drivers still have to fill out and submit forms, take an eye test, and hand over payment (3,000 yen) in person. 

Be it at the local police station or the license center, drivers have to be explicit that they have already watched the lecture online when they pursue the rest of their renewal application. Staff then verify this, presumably courtesy of those mug shots you submitted during the lecture. 

As for the application and the eye test, at the local police station I filled out a form with my name, address, and phone number. The eye test was done at a machine at the counter. It took 30 seconds. Going to a police station means preparing your own license photo in advance. Drivers who go to a license center will have it taken for them onsite - dress accordingly.  

I also checked the boxes of a kind of declaration form to say that I had not fallen asleep during the daytime or while active more than three times in a week in the last five years, or been advised by a medical practitioner to avoid driving in the last year, among other questions regarding my physical capacity to drive. 

At the end of the process, I was handed a bit of paper telling me to come back and collect my new license within some specified dates. (Starting from a little more than a month after my visit.)

All of this, as it always has in my experience, was carried out in Japanese. I was in and out of the police station within an hour. 

For me then, the online lecture seems to be emphatically a good thing and I would welcome it should the trial be deemed a success and the system rolled out nationwide. For now, it remains available only to those drivers resident in Chiba, Kyoto, Hokkaido, and Yamaguchi prefectures.  

This is not to say that the online lecture will be the only option and a requirement at that. Maybe some time in the future, but you’ve got to feel confident that onsite, face-to-face lectures will also remain available for the foreseeable future.  

While I’ve breezed through a lot of the details of the driver’s license renewal procedure, the main purpose of this article was to share my experience of the online lecture in the hope that other foreign residents who drive in Japan might feel more assured that, should it become available to them, it’s a perfectly doable option.

My experience was limited to that of the prefecture in which I reside. Some conditions, presentation and formats may vary depending on the prefecture. I don’t know.