Japan's crowded highways, limited parking spaces and high gasoline prices would seem likely to discourage all but the most determined drivers. Yet a glance at any busy urban road makes it clear that Japan is still a nation that considers endurance, if not patience, a leading virtue. It is good to know then that new vehicle-safety tests added this month to the existing tests by the Transport Ministry are said to make Japan's tests the strictest in the world.

That is welcome news, even though tests alone cannot guarantee safety. Japan's road-accident record hardly ranks high. Although the traffic-death toll fell by 205 to below 10,000 last year, the combined figure for injuries and deaths in road accidents nationwide reached a record of more than 1 million in 1999, the second consecutive annual increase. The number of accidents soared by 46,485 from the previous year for a record total of 850,363, the seventh year in a row to register an increase. With traffic fatalities already exceeding 7,000 this year, no cause for optimism is apparent.

The Transport Ministry's new tests are designed to measure the damage caused to front-seat dummies and cars when the front right side of a vehicle is rammed into a projection such as a concrete bridge support before it hits a wall behind the projection. These are in addition to the two tests that have long been standard, head-on and side collision tests. The ministry says Japan is now the only country that conducts all three types, and this year the ministry is applying the new combined series to 25 of the currently most popular car models.