How Uber Japan is changing attitudes to helmet wearing

Uber Japan’s Helmet Club is a good example of how we live our Uber values to make an impact on local communities. Many teams from across Uber Japan worked together as One Uber to Do the right thing and Stand for safety. A lot of thought-partnership, collaboration and operational effort was required to Build with Heart and launch this initiative. 

We sat down with Yuki Hirajo, Senior Public Policy Associate, to find out more about the Helmet Club and how it’s changing the perception of helmet wearing across Japan.

“The Helmet Club is an initiative unique to Uber Japan that emphasizes the importance of safety for delivery partners by encouraging them to wear helmets when making deliveries. Through this program, delivery partners in Japan can qualify to receive cash back by passing online helmet checks on the Uber app for delivery partners.”

“When we first launched the Helmet Club, Japan did not legally require cyclists to wear helmets. It was before the Road Traffic Act was amended to introduce that everyone should wear a helmet while riding a bicycle. However it’s not mandatory. The law is what we call “doryoku-gimu” in Japan which means “duty to make an effort”. At Uber we Stand for safety, so we wanted to normalize helmet wearing for delivery partners to help improve their safety while making deliveries.”

“I was chatting with Shin Otake, our Safety Operations Lead in Japan, about how Uber could promote initiatives to raise the bar for safety across our industry, and help keep our delivery partners safe on the road. We were both aware that the Japanese government would change the law around helmet wearing from April 2023, and so in the summer of 2022, we started brainstorming ideas to help delivery partners to get used to the idea of wearing helmets more regularly. 

We started by identifying the key issues around the lack of helmet wearing in Japan. First off, helmets are generally not considered as the most stylish accessory! Secondly, people just don’t wear them that often in Japan–the helmet-wearing rate was as low as 6% in some prefectures. If delivery partners don’t see the general population wearing helmets, they start to question why they themselves would need to. So we knew we needed to do something fun to change the perception of helmet wearing as well as build momentum so they could see and encourage each other to wear helmets.”

“The Japan safety team collaborated with local operations, policy, communications and marketing teams to bring the Helmet Club to life. We decided to build a club to channel the essence of a fun, engaging, and cool community for delivery partners to join. A club where they wouldn’t feel alone when wearing helmets on the road. Through the support of Safety and Product teams, we were able to launch Uber’s Helmet Detection technology to verify use of helmets . It took us about 4 months, but we worked together to operationalize a fun idea and make it a reality. 

We launched multiple social media campaigns in partnership with some famous Japanese TikTok influencers and some Uber leaders, and promoted the Helmet Club at local safety events hosted by Uber. At our event in Osaka, we collaborated with the Osaka Prefectural Police Department to host a helmet design workshop. In another event held in Tokyo, we invited a helmet manufacturer to come and explain how to wear helmets correctly while on the road. We also held a workshop with delivery partners to get them thinking about the reasons why they should wear helmets.”

“My role was to build some close relationships with Japan Law Enforcement, as well as with the local government entities who prioritize road safety and ensure understanding of Uber and our initiatives. One of my proudest moments was when the Kyoto City Government recognized the impact of Uber’s initiative and how we had become champions as leaders of safety. They invited us as guest speakers to speak about the Helmet Club’s safety initiative to about 30 local companies in the area–all of whom were committed to enhancing road safety.” 

“Longer term, it is our hope that all Uber delivery partners will feel comfortable enough to make wearing helmets the norm. We are well on our way–the helmet utilization rate on Uber has increased significantly and continues to grow. To keep up the momentum, a few months ago, the Japan Safety team kicked off a referral campaign. Existing delivery partners who are members of the Helmet Club can invite other delivery partners to join, and upon joining, both referrer and referee can receive a cash incentive. 

We also continue to partner with local government bodies including the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to encourage and promote helmet wearing across Japan. In fact, we recently sponsored the Grand Cycle Tokyo event that was hosted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in November last year which was a fun event where we were able to promote Uber’s commitment to safety.”

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