Japan also has two things the USA doesn't: High density, resulting in low walking distances between important points; and a very good public transit system, reducing walking distances even more. Both of these contribute a lot to minimizing child/car interaction, in addition to the strict traffic laws.
Re:Japan's independent kids [video]
by michaelbuddy on Wednesday September 09, 2015 @04:08PM
(#10194171)
sorry but kids walk a pretty good distance to school. high density doesn't mean school is down the block, plus some school is based on your skill level not your distance from, so you may be in the upper public school across town because you did so well. What Japan has is a lot more responsibility and empathy at crosswalks. They are used to traffic and respectful of others. Selfishness leads to speeding, mistakes which leads to crashes.
You underestimate just how low density many parts of the USA are: https://www.google.de/maps/@41.5585724,-87.6995585,6409m/dat...
In that area without parents driving their kids around, it would mean many kilometers of walking, due to the lack of public transit.
Japan has very low speed limits in dense areas: 40km/h in cities, 30km/h on side streets. That reduces the risk to pedestrians a lot.