Japanese driving schools rev up with BMWs, manicures

TOKYO - Japanese driving schools are offering more than instruction behind the wheel, with Hawaiian massage and lessons in BMWs among the services available to compete for a dwindling number of potential students.

Like a broad spectrum of Japanese companies, driving schools are grappling with the country's shrinking population and a tightfisted economic climate that have triggered fierce price competition.

"It's harder to get new customers compared with before," said Aki Takahashi, head of Tokyo's Musashi Sakai Driving School, noting that the number of people getting driver's licenses in the metropolis has plunged by more than half in the past two decades while the number of schools hasn't changed much.