Good Afternoon, my fellow JETs. My name is Brian Clarke, and I am the outgoing national AJET Publications Liaison. (I’m responsible for sales of books like Team Taught Pizza and so on, rather than our magazine AJET Across Japan). I have a small request.

But first, The new and old AJET national councils will be meeting with CLAIR in mid-May. We discuss various issues of concern to JETs, some contractual, and at that time I will be presenting a report on JET opinions regarding the driving issue.

What is the driving issue? In a nutshell, the right of JETs to use a car while they are in Japan, and more specifically, the right of JETs to use a car during work hours, as Japanese teachers do. CLAIR has said that the main obstacle to this involves liability insurance, so in theory an ALT should be able to drive providing they purchase additional insurance to protect their CO from liability. The CLAIR model contract makes no mention of this, and I'd like to see that changed.

Supposedly this is talked about in the latest CLAIR news, but that has yet to make it to my desk and I am under a deadline, (April 20th or so) so I move on. As CLAIR's first question is always "what data do you have to support this?", I present this simple request for info.

I am also interested in the question of how driving relates to JET placements. Some ALTs and CIRs without driver's licences are placed in positions with bad or non-existent public transport, or in positions where they are expected to drive. I would like to know whether this is a common problem, or a relative rarity.

I would like to hear your opinions, thoughts and views, so please contact me at ajetpubs@yahoo.com. And of course, it doesn’t matter to me if you are a member of AJET or not, you just have to be a JET. While I am interested in all your opinions, I would particularly like it if you could answer the following questions, survey style.

1. Where do you work?
2. Do you have a driver’s licence?
3. If you don’t, were you placed in a position where the lack of a licence was a problem? (Please explain briefly.)
4. If you do have a licence, has your Contracting Organization placed any restrictions on your use of a car outside of work hours? (They aren’t legaly allowed to do that, btw)
5. Has your CO placed any resrictions on your use of a car during work hours?
6. If they have placed restrictions on your use of a car, have you raised the issue with them?
7. What reasons if any did they give?
8. Has the issue of transportation influenced your decision to renew?

I thank you all for your time and patience, and let me stress: I would still like to hear from you even if you’ve had no problems in this area. Indeed, if you have had no problems, it’s important that we know. And one last thing: please indicate if your information is confidential or not. Sometimes CLAIR wants to investigate a situation, and I have to know if that is all right with you.

All the best,
Brian Clarke
ajetpubs@yahoo.com