Musings - drivers ed(ition)

Every country has its own nuances when driving on the road, mannerisms and non-written rules you should follow in order to not create too much of a mess. Sometimes it's simple things, like the fact that while in the US the horn is generally reserved for when you need to tell someone to piss off, in Japan a quick toot of your horn is often done to show recognition of another driver. That same idea, taken to the extreme is done in India, where the streets are filled with constant beeps of drivers alerting everyone to their presence.

So today I'd like to write about 5 oddities I've noticed on the road in Japan, some irritating, others really nice.

1: No turn signals. Ever. This is my biggest gripe by far with driving here. Yes, in the US you get people who wait till they're at the stoplight to turn on a blinker, but in Japan the same lack of signals is taken to the extreme. I can't even count how many times I've been following someone who suddenly slams on their brakes, turns into a shop and then as their car turns gives two flashes to say (I guess), "In case you didn't notice and just plowed into me, I really wanted to go into this ramen shop. Thanksabunch."

Um... and that's supposed to help how? Call me crazy, but isn't the point of using turn signals to... wait for this... signal to the world that you're about to turn?!

Now I'll follow that with a good point.

2: Japanese drivers don't just slam into you all the time. Especially when you screw up. I have seen a lot of times people turn into traffic, lean out into the road a bit too far with the nose of their cars or do all kinds of crazy shit that would get them killed in many countries, but drivers in Japan actually will often slow to let them continue on. They might give a "go fuck yourself" horn honk to boot, but rarely do you see the random dings and crashes you get all the time (from my experience) back home.

This same attitude also means it's way easier to turn out of stores in Japan, because someone will let you go when they really didn't have to.

3: Another great point: Japanese truck drivers. They are just swell. That's the only way to describe it. It may of course come from being the biggest things on the road in a land of narrow lanes, but truck drivers in Japan are just nice. They let you turn ahead of them, rarely cut you off, and seem to be very aware of the abilities of the vehicles around them. Trust me, watch just a bit and you'll notice how forgiving and friendly truck drivers are here with regards to the idiots flying around them in cars.

4: Then you get the light truck drivers. They are a bunch of fucking dumbasses. OK they might not all be dumb. I think a lot of them must be just too old to be on the road, or at least too old to be attempting all the batshit crazy maneuvers they do. See a light truck in Japan and it's generally driven by some dude who looks like he's 88 with one foot in the grave and the other on the gas pedal, or at the other end of the spectrum it'll be a young douchebag wearing a dew rag driving with a cigarette in one hand hanging out the window and the other holding a can of coffee. Never mind the wheel. I feel like if you outlawed the top-heavy vehicles (and forced regular driving tests to their drivers) it'd eliminate 90% of the accidents in this country.

[ In fact, Japan has an insanely high rate of accidents involving people over the age of 60, whether they're driving, riding a bicycle or walking. A sign of the good health of Japanese people that they can get out of the house even in older age, but still. ]

5: And lastly: Damn it feels good to be a rider. In Japan, motorcycles are king. Not only do scooter/motorcycle riders have in general fewer fatalities than any other category of people here (including pedestrians), they are also given almost free reign on the roads. You see cops let us two-wheeled crazies get away with everything. I see motorbike riders fly through intersections long after the light turned red and cops just blink, shrug and let them go on. The rules for 50cc riders are especially harsh... but since they aren't enforced at all, then it doesn't matter.

I think the attitude of cops must be: if they screw up they'll be the ones we scrape off the pavement, so why bother? And this (plus the crazy fast speeds on some roads), makes motorcycle riders big risk takers, but also makes us ride in constant fear of death, which will keep you on the lookout for collisions constantly.

Update: Here's a bonus one I thought of today because of the rain.

6: In Japan, when it rains people slow down like nobody's business. Yes, I will admit that driving like a maniac in the rain isn't very safe, but the amount of congestion caused by rain here is enough to piss off the pope. You see a single rain drop, or even a hint that it may rain within the next 8 hours, and people suddenly drop to 30kph in a 50 zone. Ask anyone who's driven in Japan about the traffic jams caused by a light drizzle and they'll go on for hours, almost as much time probably as is wasted by people driving as if the rain was literally made of lava they had to dodge.