I have a rental car booked for 3 days in total (during my 23 day trip) so I can venture out and see more rural areas & to make things easier visiting Universal Studios in Osaka as it would otherwise be a 1.45 hour, multi train journey, each way from my hotel.
I’m from the UK, so familiar with yellow/Amber lights, green arrows for turning in specific directions etc, along with driving on the left, however I’ve been looking on Google maps and I’m fairly worried about the layout of where the traffic lights seem to be located in more built up areas.
They seem to be located overhead, over on the right hand side of the oncoming traffic, and just before the junction stop line. If you’re in line with the junction at the indicated marking, driving on the left, it doesnt look like you can actually see when they change and the next best option is to look at a light that seems quite a distance down the road (usually past a busy 4 way area), and that seems awfully difficult to see on google maps. This has me quite concerned as I definitely don’t want any tickets, and I absolutely do not want to cause or be involved in any accidents or hurt myself or anyone else.
Are the lights that are further away actually easier to see in real life than on Google maps? Is there something I’m missing? I don’t understand why the traffic lights look so far away on the left hand side.
Any advice would be helpful and greatly appreciated. Apologies if this sound stupid but I’d rather ask.
UPDATE: Thank you to everyone who replied, I found some YouTube videos shortly after posting and you are all correct they’re completely fine and easy to see, I think Google maps did me dirty and warped the area making it look stupidly far away.
Also, to the small amount of people claiming I’m “too anxious” to drive and would be “a danger,” because I asked a question about google maps & how the traffic lights look; this line of thinking is incredibly insulting and judgmental over a question. Looking at roads/areas/transport on google maps is not anything out of the norm, and more people should be doing this before hiring a car and “winging” it on the road. I like to be thorough and would not jeopardise anyone’s saftey or my own for convenience. I would not have booked the rental if at any point I was anxious about driving in Japan. There is nothing wrong with asking questions if something looks off.
10 comments
We drove in Japan, from Tokyo to Nagano, from Nagano to Kyoto and from Kyoto to Tokyo and never had any problems seeing traffic lights. They were like usual traffic lights.
Not to dump on the idea but do you really need a car? Where will you be staying? A car definitely makes sense if you plan on visiting rural areas but I wouldn’t take a car to USJ. You’ll have to worry about tolls and parking both at USJ and your hotel and taking multiple trains and transferring is the norm. My guess is the drive time is probably similar to train time but it’s way more relaxing to just chill on a train than navigate traffic. Just my 2 yen
You seem like an anxious person, exactly the kind of person who shouldn’t be driving in a foreign country for the first time.
Highway buses are a great way to experience local culture and get from A to B directly. Japanese truck stops are AMAZING. I did this from Tokyo to Osaka and managed to get 5 hours of sleep.
I can’t really understand what you’re describing with the traffic lights, but for the 7 years that I lived in Japan as a car owner I had no issues driving and I never thought the traffic lights looked like they were hard to see.
You are right to be cautious, and I’m glad to see someone taking their responsibility to be an informed and prepared driver seriously, particularly in unfamiliar territory.
Google hasn’t completely done you wrong – there are intersections at which the stop line is too close to see lights easily without craning your neck a bit. At many of those, the light on the opposite side of the road (that with oncoming traffic) is often visible, but not always. If there is a crosswalk, the common timing for lights is that they change about 4 seconds after the crosswalk has gone red, but many intersections have staggered timing, so that won’t always be dependable.
Often the best way to handle lights is to stop a carlength before the stop line. Japanese drivers can be as clueless as drivers anywhere, but city traffic usually moves more slowly than in most western countries and I have seen much less “brake-checking” and road rage here for perceived slights… though there is still some.
Also, beware taxi drivers, but no more than anywhere else in the world, and much less than in some places.
After driving a lot in the UK and Japan, I can assure you that you are worrying a lot about nothing.
If you stop at the front too close to see any lights you move your head a little bit until you can, disaster avoided.
I don’t remember how the pedestrian crossings were in the UK but in Japan most of the time if you have a green light to turn the pedestrians also have a green light to cross, so take the light controlled intersection corners very slow and carefully as you will see everyone else do, if you crash into any pedestrians or cyclists as a car it’s your fault regardless of what they might have done wrong.
Other than that the speed limits are low and everyone speeds on highways outside of the city, but the police can still stop you and you sound nervous anyway so just drive the speed limit and stay out of the right lane unless passing on highways.
Just remember that even if the light is red, green arrow can go. This includes going straight. Could even be a red light with a green left, straight and right arrow. Confusing af initially, but youll get the idea.
Make sure to learn what Japanese stop signs and stop road markings look like (usually some variation of とまれ、止まれ or occasionally
トマレ).
Bear in mind that at most junctions, pedestrians and cars will travel at the same time and to give way to foot traffic. I.e. if you are turning left or right at lights, pedestrians going straight have right of way.
You must come to a complete halt before ALL railway crossings too (yes, it is annoying. No, I don’t understand it).
You should take the train
lol weebs