He starts the meter and asks for the destination, to which the customer gives a strange response.
Either then, or sometime later, the driver turns around to address the man or woman - but the passenger has vanished.
This is because, it is claimed, it was a 'ghost passenger' who was, in fact, killed in the disaster five years ago.
At least seven taxi drivers in Ishinomaki have reported such an experience of a 'phantom fare', according to The Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
The coastal town in Miyagi Prefecture was among the regions most seriously affected by the deadly tsunami, which killed nearly 16,000 people in total.
Speaking to Yuka Kudo, a student of sociology at Tohoku Gakuin University, one taxi driver told of how he may have seen one of these residents just months after the March 2011 earthquake.
He said he was working in the town when a young woman dressed in a coat climbed into his cab near Ishinomaki Station and told him: “Please go to the Minamihama (district).”
In response, he told her that the area was 'almost empty' and asked her if she was sure she wished to go there.
The woman replied in a trembling voice, "Have I died?".
