Driving in Japan

What your father never taught you!

Go back to the Japan Living Section

Driving in Japan: your Guide to driving here

Anyone can follow the rules, but Japanese Drivers Make Their Own Rules!

Stop signs back home mean stop, Stop signs in Japan are Optional!

Red lights, smed lights, Red lights --they are Optional too!

To Japanese green is blue (go figure?)

Green lights mean go.

Yellow lights mean go.

Red lights mean go.......

Really FAST!!!!!!

Driving in Japan:

I love it here! I never stop for anything!

...except for a bite to eat eh. Of course when I do,

I go to a drive through.

And I mean at the intercom, what the hell are those Japanese people saying? Either the speaker is broken or it`s like a different language! I never understand them.

"What?!!!!!! What did you say????!! I want a Big Mac."

Driving in Japan: Back on the road:

Okay we can`t turn on a red that is a bummer,and I miss that when I drive in Japan.

But pedestrians, smedestrians, ignore `em!

If they dare to cross, screw `em, you can drive faster!

I Like to see them Run!

Hit one you get 50 points.

Two for a dollar!

(or 150 Yen, the yen is very strong these days)

What about the police you say?

They don`t do anything.

No they ain`t sipping coffee and horking down donuts at Tim Hortons,they be checking seat belts,and at the exact same location and time every week!!!!!I love Japan!!!!

So you know that at 3:30PM on Tuesday they will be at the tunnel,and at 5:30PM on Friday they will be at the bridge as usual!I`ve even gotten to know them because I see them all the time."Hi Hiroshi! How`s the wife and kids."

"Arigato, okage same de," he`ll say with his usual smile,as he pulls over some poor schmuck from Kawasakiwho doesn`t know that Friday evening is bridge day in Odawara.

Poor guy, someone should have posted the schedule for himon the internet.

Hmmmh....Maybe that is my task for today.

I love the bosozoku too. They do whatever they want! Kind of like Japanese Hell`s Angels with hearing loss...

And what do the police do?

Get this!?

Nothing!

They don`t do a thing!

I should a bin a policeman. What a dream job!

I can give directions like the best of them!!!

One policeman at the Police Station told me honestly,they don`t do anything about them.The law favours the bosozoku should he get injured while the police are persuing them.

Driving in Japan: the Police

One policeman in Kanagawa lost his job over it! (Apparently this is a true story unfortunately--Editor) This bosozoku was driving all over the place and this cop tried to stop him with a long stick and the bosozuku crashed into a fence.

(How do bosozoku crash into fences? They drive so slowly?)

No the bosozuku didn`t go to jail, the policeman was fired.

So the police don`t bother with the bosozoku much. Not good for job security and Hiroshi has a pension coming up.

Let`s be honest, the Police are too busy anyway..........

They are…… too busy checking seat belts at the tunnel,...or doing paper work in the office,or sleeping on the futon in the back room of the Koban.Come to think of it, I wish I had become a policeman. I could use the extra Shut eye.

Or riding that funky bicycle around. What`s with that?

No car available that day? Leiutenant Yoshida gets the car again? That bastard, he always gets the bloody car. Why I am stuck on this stupid bicycle?

"Hey you in the sports car, stop!

I will catch you on my funky bicycle!!!!!"

I don`t think Kojak or Miami Vice would have been a hit,had Telli Savales been on a ten speed.

Besides his head would have been sunburned all the time.

I love it here. So Sorry, gotta run,

--the red light…...

From Driving in Japan to More humor about life in Japan

From driving in Japan to How to teach English in Japan (home)