Road Rules

It's time I went back to Japan again and did some housekeeping. The trick is now to find a good airfare. Jetstar is undoubtedly the cheapest but I don't like having to transit in Queensland and I hate giving money to an Australian airline. I need for Air NZ to come up with a special like they did this time last year.

Mixin it up on the Midosuji

I read in the Japan Times that in Kameoka a teenager in a van ran over some schoolkids and killed 2 of them. It always surprises me that this sort of thing doesn't happen everyday. The traffic/pedestrian mix in Japanese cities is ludicrous. Despite having a huge automotive industry Japan is at heart a nation of walkers and has not yet come to terms with traffic. A lot of places there are no footpaths and the fact that houses and shops are allowed to be built without any setback from the road means that people are simply going to walk on the road. OK...but when they do that they seem to forget that cars and trucks are also using that same road. I've rarely seen anybody who looks even half aware of this fact. Old people are the worst. Some of them may have been living beside this road all their lives but still look astounded when a car comes along while they're shuffling across it.  Even though large numbers of motor vehicles have been driving around Japanese cities for over 60 years, I still get the feeling that they are viewed as something that has just come along and people don't yet quite know how to respond to them. In Kameoka I used to drive past a rock which was right on the edge of the road. When I say road, I mean the barely 2 metre wide path that everybody uses to access their homes. And when I say on the edge, I mean this thing was literally on the road. This rock was about 50cms high and had some kanji written on it. To me it looked like a shrine of some sort, the kind of which you see all over Japan. Driving by this rock I was always scared that even a minute twist of the steering wheel would result in me driving over some ancient monument and incurring the wrath of the natives. It was a stupid place to have a rock of any kind much less one of some importance or spiritual value but that's the kind of traffic hazard you see everywhere in Japan.

Bicyclers and scooterists are even worse. It seems that a lot of people disengage their brain whenever they jump on a bicycle. Weaving erratically around traffic and pedestrians with careless abandon is the name of the game when using any form of 2 wheeled transport around town. People ride straight through stop signs while using umbrellas and texting on their phones. I believe this stems from the tradition that in an accident the driver of the car is automatically guilty of causing it just like if a bicycle hits a pedestrian the cyclist is at fault regardless of the circumstances. The laws around bicycles are a great example of this lack of attention to traffic reality. Riding a bike on the footpath is forbidden except in places where it is not but nobody seems to know where they may be so everyone rides on the footpath. Riding at night without a light will get you a stiff fine while riding drunk will mostly likely get you a lot of finger wagging and a warning to not do it again. The cops are big on bicycle theft....(all bikes have to be registered) but aren't interested in enforcing laws like the ones prohibiting carrying other people on your bicycle or chatting on the phone while riding. One good thing about Japan is the lack of militant "cars are evil, everybody should ride a bike" activist bicyclists like we have in NZ. These idiots are usually to be found wearing bright coloured spandex and riding 5 abreast on busy roads. They know they are being unreasonable and don't care who they offend. I don't know which is most annoying....stupidity as seen in Japan or such willful stupidity as seen in NZ.

Where I come from roads are for motor vehicles. Sure you are entitled to be on the road on your bike or horse or scooter but be under no illusions....the car is king. It's up to you to stay out of the way and not do anything stupid. If you don't you'll be splatted and get very little sympathy from anyone. And that's as it should be..............