Old people suddenly cross the road: caution!

12 comments

1. What gets me is the sheer amount of people on bicycles or pedestrians that will immediately cross a road without so much as taking 1 second to look over their shoulder to make sure 100% that a car isn’t coming their way. I understand that a motor vehicle will almost always be at fault if an accident were to occur but still. Some people seem to have a death wish..

2. More than once we’ve been driving down our little residential road and some idiot will literally spin on their heel directly into our path not a thought it their head. Then they stare at us going by like they’ve never seen an auto-ma-car before.

3. Tobidashi baachan is legend. Nearly yokai status

4. They don’t look … just cross

5. Old people are the absolute worst trash. No spatial awareness, ride their bikes on the opposite road / crosswalk…

6. Just make sure you don’t hit them. Right or wrong , you’ll usually hear it from the family.

7. Also driving on a two way slightly narrow road, I move over to the left at the edge when another car approaches. Often old drivers will continue driving down the middle to past instead of driving on their left to easily past. Then I get the mean look for letting the pass lol

8. You’ve also got the boso-ronin to look out for.

9. I’m still getting used to the fact that the hierarchy on the streets in Japan is pedestrians/cyclists/cars descending in that order. 90% of the time when a car has right of way it will let me on my bicycle go first- very confusing! Of course pedestrians should not walk out in the middle of the road- but there is going to be plenty of older pedestrians that are a little confused and or have dementia or whatever and will simply walk across the road without looking or caring. Part of it I think comes from the fact that plenty of roads (most where I live) simply don’t have footpaths and so pedestrians are forced to share the road with cyclists and cars. And they are the boss on those streets. How often do you hear cars in Japan beeping people or cyclists?

10. > If you’re driving in Japan, please watch out!

    Or cycling, had a few near-incidents, such as an elderly lady step out from behind shrubbery into a main road.

    My all-time favorite is the old biddy who decided to cross all six lanes of a major arterial road at the pedestrian crossing (so far so good), but she decided to do it well after the pedestrian lights had turned red, and was crossing the left-hand lane when the road traffic lights had just turned green. All because she saw a taxi.

11. I am tired of people not looking when walking or riding bicycles. My gf almost hit an old man this morning because he rode his bicycle into our lane without looking. They just want that lawsuit money.

12. Also, people crossing the road behind stopped buses, both on foot or on a bicycle.

    On narrow streets, when I see a bus stopped in the opposite lane I always slow down and assume that a child or a bicycle-riding idiot is going to jump in front of my car from behind the bus.

    This is one of my biggest fears when driving in the city after almost hitting a child in this way around 3 years ago.