Minoru Maeda dreads going outside alone. For him, one wrong step could be fatal.
Maeda, 61, is one of 160,000 Japanese registered as legally blind. "When I go out with my white cane, cars still speed right past me. It really scares me," says Maeda, who lost his sight 13 years ago due to eye disease. Now unemployed, he lives alone in Tokyo's Ota Ward.
Several years ago, he learned firsthand just how perilous things can be. At a train station, he walked right off the platform, hit the tracks and broke his wrist.