Home ／ Agreement
This is a reference translation. If there is any discrepancy, the Japanese version prevails.
This is the agreement between you and us for the tour itself — who may drive, what happens on the day, and who is responsible for what. You accept it when you complete a booking, and every driver in your party is bound by it.
There are no passenger seats. Every person in your booking drives their own kart on public roads in ordinary traffic, in a group led by a guide.
This is not a closed circuit and it is not an amusement ride. You are driving a road vehicle and you are subject to the Road Traffic Act in the same way as any other driver in Japan.
A licence valid in Japan means one of the following: a Japanese driving licence; an International Driving Permit issued under the 1949 Geneva Convention, presented together with your home licence; an accepted official Japanese translation of your home licence, presented together with that licence; or driving privileges under the Status of Forces Agreement. A permit issued under the 1968 Vienna Convention is not accepted in Japan. Check your own country on the licence guide.
You may not let anyone else drive the kart assigned to you, and you may not swap karts with another participant during the tour.
After booking, you upload your licence, your permit or translation where one is required, and your passport. We check them and tell you if something will not be accepted.
Upload at least 48 hours before departure and we can warn you while there is still time to fix a problem. After that point your originals are checked at the counter on the day instead. Uploading is not a condition of taking part — bringing the originals is.
We are legally required to verify that anyone renting a road vehicle from us may lawfully drive it in Japan. This is not a formality we can waive on the day, however far you have travelled. This is why we ask you to upload early.
You may not drive if you have consumed any alcohol. Japan has a near-zero limit and the consequences are criminal, not commercial. We will refuse anyone we believe has been drinking, and no refund applies.
The same applies if you are under the influence of drugs or of medication that affects alertness, if you are ill or exhausted to a degree that affects your driving, or if you are pregnant.
Tell us in advance about any medical condition that could affect your driving. We treat that information confidentially and use it only to decide whether we can carry you safely.
Our guides may end your participation at any point during the tour if they judge that continuing is unsafe. If that happens because of your condition or conduct, no refund applies.
Fines and penalties for traffic offences are imposed on you personally as the driver, not on us.
The karts are registered road vehicles and are maintained and insured by us for road use. You may not modify them, remove equipment from them, or drive them outside the tour route.
Inspect the kart during the briefing and tell the guide before you set off if anything appears wrong. Once you drive away you are accepting the kart as fit for the tour.
If a kart is damaged, the amount you can be asked to pay is capped at ¥50,000 per kart. For damage that occurs in the course of normal use, you will not be charged more than ¥50,000, even if the repair costs more than that. This cap does not apply to damage caused by breaching this agreement — for example drink-driving, racing, or ignoring staff instructions or traffic signals — and in those cases you are liable for the full amount of the damage.
You are responsible for damage you cause to the kart, to other vehicles or to property where the damage results from your breach of this agreement — driving under the influence, ignoring the guide's instructions or a traffic signal, racing, or leaving the route.
Where we bill you after the tour, we tell you what the charge is for and what it is based on before we take it. A member of our team checks every charge against your booking first; nothing is billed automatically.
Fines and citations issued in connection with your driving are yours to pay. They are excluded from insurance.
Because notices often arrive after visitors have left Japan, they may be sent to us as the registered keeper of the vehicle. Where that happens we identify the driver from the tour records, contact you with the notice, and charge the amount to the card used for the booking. We check the notice against your booking before anything is billed.
Light rain: tours run as scheduled. If you would rather not ride in the rain, you may move to another date free of charge.
Severe weather — heavy rain, storms, lightning, or an official warning in effect: we cancel and you choose between moving to another date and a full refund.
We may also cancel or shorten a tour for road closures, an incident on the route, a vehicle fault, or police direction. If we cancel before departure you receive a full refund or a free reschedule. If we cut a tour short for reasons attributable to us, we refund the portion of the fee corresponding to the driving time lost.
Free cancellation up to 7 days before departure. From 6 days before departure the full amount is charged and no refund is given. Full detail, including no-shows and late arrivals, is in the Cancellation Policy, which forms part of this agreement.
GoPro rental is available at ¥3,000. Footage you record is yours.
We photograph and film tours, and we may use those images to promote the business. If you would prefer not to appear, tell your guide at the briefing and we will exclude you — there is no charge and no disadvantage to you for asking. You may also ask us afterwards to stop using an image in which you appear; email info@scramblekart.com.
Costume rental is free and goes on over your own clothing, together with the helmet and safety equipment.
We do not offer costumes depicting characters owned by others. Japanese courts have held that lending riders costumes of well-known copyrighted or trademarked characters is unauthorised use of those characters, and we do not do it. You may not bring your own character costume on the tour for the same reason.
We are responsible for running the tour with reasonable care and skill, for maintaining the karts and safety equipment properly, for briefing you adequately, and for guiding you competently.
We are not responsible for loss caused by your own breach of this agreement or of traffic law, for loss that was not reasonably foreseeable, or for consequential losses such as missed flights or onward travel arising from a cancellation.
We do not exclude or limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for loss caused by our intentional acts or gross negligence. Under the Consumer Contract Act, a clause purporting to exclude all of an operator's liability to a consumer has no effect, and we do not attempt one.
Driving a small open vehicle in city traffic carries risk that care on our part cannot remove. Take that into account when deciding whether to take part.
How we handle the information you give us — including your licence and passport images — is set out in the Privacy Policy, which forms part of this agreement.
If you booked through a platform such as Viator, Klook or GetYourGuide, this agreement still governs the tour itself and your conduct on it. The platform's own cancellation and refund terms govern your payment, and where they differ from ours, theirs apply to that booking.
The version of this agreement that applies to your booking is the version in force when you booked; its version number and date are at the foot of this page.
The Japanese text is the authoritative version. The English text is provided for your convenience; if they differ, the Japanese text governs.
This agreement is governed by Japanese law, and disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Tokyo District Court / Tokyo Summary Court as the court of first instance.
If any provision of this agreement is found to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue in force.
In force from 17 September 2026. The Japanese text is the authoritative version; the English text is provided for convenience.
