Naps, TV, karaoke: what Japanese drivers are really doing in their rental cars
- As many as one in eight are not using vehicles for motoring purposes, industry surveys show
- Users say they’ve eaten in cars, brushed up on their language skills, and even used them for storage when regular lockers are full
Car rental companies in Japan have figured out why some customers are returning their vehicles with barely a mile on the clock.
Rather than travel from point A to B, as many as one in eight “drivers” are using their rental cars to grab forty winks, catch up on work or even brush up their language skills, according to industry surveys.
The unusual habits came to light after Orix Auto found a number of its 230,000 registered users were not driving their rented vehicles, the Asahi newspaper reported.
Other rental firms noticed similar anomalies in their customers’ mileage records and approached them hoping to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Times24, which has more than 1.2 million registered users, found some clients napped, worked or even used their rented vehicles as storage space for personal belongings when nearby regular lockers were full.