I have a question, rather out of pure curiosity – does the very large and beautiful car culture in Japan have its bad behavior? often in some countries “dumb” car people do bad things – example: USA and its intersections overtakes, in some other countries any kind of street racing/drifting is very bad perceived by both non related people and car people. does such behavior happen in japan? in general or by some specific groups, something that annoys people a lot and is often dangerous.
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/14ghndw/bad_behaviors_of_car_culture_in_japan/
19 comments
Drifting and Touge on public roads. High speed driving on the highways too.
Pretty sure all countries with cars have some shorty people. I hate who blast there sport car engines in Tokyo. Who needs a sport car in Tokyo when you’re always going like 30km
Is buckling up your kid considered rude? Kids seem to travel via the thunder dome here
– When they turn on a small intersection they don’t stay in the left lane, they turn right in the middle of the road.
– Occasionally, on bigger intersections, I get drivers who have the right of the way but they freeze, hey don’t move and they don’t even look at me. Signaling them to go doesn’t work, they sit there often as long as three minutes until they finally proceed at a snail pace.
Tailgating, running red lights, and cutting in front are commonplace.
I’m very active in the car culture here for about 20 years now. The biggest nuisances are probably the bosozoku, whose entire purpose seems to be to break out of the status quo in the most annoying ways possible, but do it in a mob mentality. They would actually block roads to show off or take up every lane on the expressways going super slow and riding dangerously.
They LIKE being chased by cops makes them feel badass or something. They steal mopeds and bikes and make them as obnoxious as possible. Most time s, they’re high school age, so cops don’t want to prosecute them. Anytime they show up to any car or bike event, cops come right behind them and kick everyone out. Just dicks.
As far as drifters and racers, not so bad, actually. Other than more than a few bad examples, most do so late at night in unpopulated areas so as not to risk anyone’s safety. The cops usually show up just to tell them to go home because traffic may start back up again. This is usually how it goes. There are exceptions to this of course, and there will be crackdowns around election season, traffic safety weeks, etc.
And then there’s the lamborghini/Ferrari rich people crowd. It’s definitely different seeing them lit up and all these crazy car wraps. But they DEFINITELY do rich people things. And some of their antics caused some nice car meet up places with beautiful scenery to be modified by the city to be less beautiful, simply for the purpose of discouraging them from staying there.
While not quite as exciting as the answer you are looking for, so many people drive while watching their favorite variety show on the GPSTV.
Considering how often I have to listen to people absolutely fucking tearing down the country road by my house in cars and on motorcycles at 11pm, I’d say there is some bad behaviour, yes. It’s a road that dead-ends in the mountains and has no traffic after the farmers call it a day, so it’s 100% a joy riding thing. They’re choosing the road because it’s safe, but they clearly don’t give a shit about all the locals who get up before dawn every day to prepare for their 14+ hour work days. Every time they wake me up I imagine myself leaning out the window with some sort of guided missile launcher.
Literally, yesterday, at the Koshien/Nishonomiya junction on the Meishin, a kei truck was literally reversing on the off ramp because they realized they were going towards Osaka instead of Nishinomiya.
And had I not noticed, I would have smashed right into him.
There is a lot of bad driving in Japan. If not for the fact that the speed limits are so low here probably half of the country would be dead by now.
Funny you should mention that. I’m in the Hispanic community and there’s this lowrider subculture that looks cool from afar but in person it gets annoying because they overcrowd the streets,blast ghetto music and rev that also obnoxiously loud engine even when the green light they pass is less than few meters away from the next one. And somebody somewhere sometime in japan decided that was cool too so they imitated it and still do to this day.
There was a news on how a bunch of Ferraris and Lamborghinis got into accidents. They were basically speeding.
Oh dear God yes. I live in California and I’ve seen some of the worst drivers in Japan. In general people are better, at least at using their turn signals. But I’ve seen a lot of really bad drivers in Japan, including aggressive drivers that would make California drivers quiver in fear.
After driving/riding here for nearly 20 years, Ive noticed that you can divide Japanese drivers into a couple of groups.
Normal every day drivers who drive slow and are slow to react, and drive normal cars. Priuses and such. These are the vast majority of drivers here.
Then you have Yanki family drivers who drive minivans (Estimas and voxies) who are more aggressive.
Luxury morons who drive BMWs and Mercedes who never use turn signals.
And finally enthusiasts who drive tuner cars and specialty cars. These guys are better drivers but you only see them at night or weekends.
The slower every day drivers are exhausting. Which is why I prefer to ride my bike so I can get through traffic and leave them behind.
I mean, if you are first in line at the lights, BE READY TO GO WHEN IT TURNS GREEEEENNN!! FFS! (rant over)
street takeovers are very bay area culture
I’ve been driving in Japan for five years and I am always amazed at how courteous and careful most drivers are. The exceptions being most of the Kansai region and truck drivers on the rural roads.
One thing I’ve seen is that a lot of drivers treat the yellow signal light as “You better speed up before it turns red”. So oftentimes they speed up so much that even if it actually turns red a second or two before they’re about to pass – they don’t stop anyway as it would need a damn hard brake to start – and they still might end up in the middle of the road – so they just run the red light.
For drivers like this I need to check both sides of the road carefully before proceeding to pass the road (on foot, through Zebra crossing), just in case someone’s planning on running the red light hoping to make it before other side’s cars start moving.
Racing down small neighborhood streets where children and elderly people regularly walk is par for the course here and pedestrians don’t seem to mind it at all for some reason. Huge pedestrian deference to cars here for some reason. Also it seems German car drivers (Benz, BMW, Audi, etc) are especially egregious offenders. Also blowing through non-signal crosswalks in residential and retail areas while people are waiting to cross (or are actually in the process of crossing) is quite common.
I live in the suburbs of Tokyo in Kanagawa so this may be different in other areas.
I’m on a little island in the inaka, slow roads, not a lot of traffic. My only real complaint is people stopping in the middle of the road to take a phone call, even when there’s numerous turnouts, rest stops, and side roads that would allow you to pull over. I can’t count the number of times I’ve passed someone just stopped in the middle of the road on their phone, with a cutout only 30 meters in front of them. I suppose it’s better than talking WHILE driving, but it really boggles my mind.