Misleading: Video shows driving contest in China, not license exam
A video showing a white SUV masterfully navigating a track marked with white lines, demonstrating advanced manoeuvers such as reverse parking, quarter turns, and three-point turns, was posted on Instagram on Feb. 25.
Text overlaid on the video claims it shows a “small car driving license exam in Japan” and says Japan’s accident rate was only “2% for the year 2024.”
The Instagram post received over 74,000 likes and 75,000 shares. The same video has circulated in other languages, including Arabic, Portuguese, and Turkish.
Meanwhile, Annie Lab’s investigation found that similar footage of the same track has been spreading since as early as 2022, with some posts claiming it shows a driving exam in China.
The Independent, India Today, NDTV, The Economic Times and First Post all reported on the viral video and the reactions it generated online.
In China, many social media users claimed the video shows the amended “Subject Two” (科目二), the second part of the country’s driving license exam, which will be conducted at designated exam centres.
These claims have attracted over 100,000 likes and nearly 300,000 shares on platforms like Douyin (here, here and here) and Xiaohongshu.
However, we traced the video to a 2021 driving contest organized by Rizhao Port in Shandong Province. It is not related to any official driving license exam in either Japan or China.
Where is the driving track located?
A search with Chinese keywords “新版科目二 (New Subject Two)” led us to a post (archived here) dated Dec. 15, 2022, by a Xiaohongshu user named @地球百科君.
The user, who often posts geolocation investigation videos, identified the driving track’s location as Rizhao Port, matching visual clues such as Chinese signage, an eight-track railway, green tarpaulin, and metal pipe bridges, to Baidu Map’s satellite images.
The user also noted that people wore long sleeves in the footage, consistent with the cooler climate of northern China in September, a month when the investigated footage was posted.
Is this a driving license exam?
Annie Lab reviewed the latest version of “Motorized Vehicle Driving License Application and Use Regulations” issued by China’s Ministry of Public Security on Dec. 21, 2024.
Among other things, the regulations outline the requirements for the Subject Two exam for light motor vehicles, a type of car seen in the viral video.
The official exam includes tasks such as reverse parking, parallel parking, stopping and starting on a slope, 90-degree turns, and S-curve driving. Demonstration videos of these tasks are available online (for example, here (archived here)).
Compared with these demo videos, the viral drone footage features significantly more complex manoeuvers, including zig-zags, reverse curve driving, reverse bridge crossing, and three-point turns, going beyond the standard requirements for the official Subject Two test.
A search on Douyin with keywords “driving” and “Rizhao Port” found a video (archived here) posted on Aug. 26, 2021, by Rizhao Port’s official account. The footage was filmed at the same location, featuring a similar vehicle.
A banner in this video reads: “Service Support Center Inaugural Automotive Driving Contest,” and WeChat articles from Rizhao Port Service Support Center confirm that driving contests were held at the venue in 2021 (archived here), which also featured the same video, and in 2024 (archived here).
Annie Lab contacted Rizhao Port for further information about the contest and the origin of the drone footage, but has not received a response at the time of publication.
Japan’s accident rate
The widespread Instagram post also claimed Japan’s accident rate is 2% for 2024, but the definition of “accident rate” is unclear, and no sources were cited except for the unspecified “Japanese organizations.”
According to Japan’s National Public Safety Commission and National Police Agency, the country’s traffic fatality rate was 2.14 per 100,000 people in 2024.
The road traffic mortality rate per 100,000 population is a common metric to compare road safety levels among countries.
The World Health Organization’s 2021 estimate for Japan was 2.7 per 100,000, which is significantly lower than the global average of 15 and the Western Pacific countries’ average of 15.2.
The estimated figure for China stands at 17.4 per 100,000.
