Pedestrians on Tokyo's sidewalks could only welcome the report last week that the Metropolitan Police Department intends to crack down on bicycle riders who violate traffic regulations. Thirteen accidents in which cyclists were killed were registered in the capital as of the end of February, an increase of seven over the same period in 1998. Only two of the 13 fatal accidents did not involve transgressions of the road laws by the cyclists, ignoring traffic signals being prominent among them.

However, a question arises about implementation. If the Tokyo traffic police are no more successful than they currently are in stopping flagrant violations by truck and automobile drivers, what reason is there to believe the crackdown on bicyclists will succeed? Some observers expect it to be largely a case of good intentions and that in practice it will apply mainly to cyclists who are actually involved in accidents, rather than the many who regularly invite disaster and yet usually miraculously escape.

Bicyclists are only one small part of Japan's road-safety problem, of course. After several years in which traffic fatalities nationwide registered a decline, deaths from all types of vehicle accidents are on the rise again. Figures for the first two months of the year show fatality rates higher than in the same period last year and suggest that it may be impossible to keep the total below 10,000 again in 1999. That is, unless regulations intended to protect drivers, their passengers and pedestrians are enforced -- with the cooperation of an often stubborn public. In that case, accident-related deaths could begin to show a substantial fall from the 9,211 recorded for all of 1998.