If you drive through Tokyo on a weekday morning, you will pass small children in matching yellow hats walking to school. Many first-graders in Japan wear one, though some schools have dropped them. They exist because one police officer ran out of options.

The cop who could not get crossing guards

In 1959 Japan's road deaths passed 10,000 a year for the first time. Cars were spreading faster than pavements and traffic lights, and many of the dead were children and old people (Mainichi newspaper; NHK).

Sakashita Toshiro was a traffic section chief at Wakayama West police station, far to the south-west of Tokyo. According to an NHK programme, he stood at the roadside himself as a human traffic signal, and it made little difference. That year Tokyo had begun paying "green aunties" to guard school crossings. He asked his bosses for the same in Wakayama. NHK's account says the answer was no, because there was no budget.

A cowboy at the cinema

NHK says he then happened to see a Western. A cowboy in an orange hat stood out from far away. The next day, the programme says, he began putting hats of different colours on local children and watching from 300 metres, in different light and weather.

Mainichi's headlines for its 2021 coverage describe a test on 10,000 children and name the Western as the spark. Yellow, they found, was the colour drivers noticed first.

A first-grader in a yellow hat on the way to school

From one police station to the whole country

In April 1960, Wakayama West police asked local first-graders and kindergartners to wear yellow hats (Japanese Wikipedia; NHK). A national newspaper picked it up, and the idea spread.

In July 1962 the Prime Minister, Ikeda Hayato, gave Sakashita a commendation. Wakayama's police say it is unusual for a serving officer to receive one (Mainichi). His hat and certificate are kept in the Wakayama police archive.

One caveat: a retired Wakayama officer told a local paper in 2014 that his own team ran the colour test around 1961. Most sources, including Mainichi, name Sakashita.

See it yourself

  • School-run traffic. On weekday mornings, roughly 7:30 to 9:30, look for children in yellow hats and yellow bag covers at crossings. Your guide builds the day around the rush, so you are likely to see them.
  • The hat itself. Look at how bright it is against grey pavement and dark clothes. That was the test.

Hear it on the tour

Sources

Photo credits