Any tips for a new driver in Japan? I have had over 15 years of driving experience in my home country and have driven everything from a smart car to a class A RV. So I have experience driving, just not the intricacies of Driving in Japan. Thank you in advance!
33 comments
Red lights are suggestions and the hazard lights overrule any parking restrictions. Safe journey!
Everyone is trying to kill you. Yes, everyone.
Cyclists in mainland absolutely have a death wish by blindly riding into crosswalks. I’m not kidding, they don’t even slow down. They just assume whatever vehicle is entering the intersection will see them and brake in time. I’ve never seen anything like it. Absolutely no self preservation desire, at all.
Get a drive recorder.
What out for Toyota Crowns. Assume every BMW will do the wrong thing.
Try not to get angry at the insanity that will surround you.
Bigger cars literally do not fit on some roads in the inaka, so don’t chance it if it’s looking bad.
Congratulations!
Drive the smallest car possible, like a kei-car, better yet a kei-car from the 80s… Then you’re sure to fit in any excuse-for-a-street they have in my neighbourhood!
Take shinkansen, and rent at the destination.
Bicycle a demigods. Bow and make way to every since one!
Expect every other driver, especially those driving a Prius, to do something stupid and you will rarely be disappointed.
As someone who was recently blasted by someone blowing a red light. Get. A. Driver. Recorder. I skipped because at shaken I was going to change vehicles. Absolute mistake. Missed a week of work and that woman’s story changed about 5 times by the end of it.
Watch TV while driving as much as possible and Children car seats are totally optional.
Rent cars and go around, especially those narrow roads to get used to it.
beware of taxis making sudden stops at intersections!!
When people flash their hazard lights at you that’s saying “thank you” for letting them merge. I drove around for months like, “what’s with Japanese people randomly turning on their hazards all the time?” Lol.
After I figured it out it’s actually really helpful.
Almost all pedestrians have a death wish. The amount of people that’ll dart in the street or cross without warning is even higher than the area of my country (east coast US).
Also, there will always be an asshole in a Prius or Vitz that’ll cut you off last minute. At least the flash to say thank you, but without a doubt, it happens to me once a week. Maybe driving in Saitama sucks, but that’s what I deal with.
Okay, for actual tips/recommendations/etiquette :
-if you need to merge into a lane in traffic, after you get in front of someone, put on your hazard lights for 1-2 seconds to say “thank you “. People don’t really do the hand wave “thank you” unless they’re turning.
-put on your hazards while backing up/backing into a parking spot to alert others (I know this might be obvious, but we don’t do this in my country, so it was something new I learned here)
-seriously, look at your left blind spot when turning left…bikers really come out of nowhere even if it was clear 2 seconds ago. There will be bikers to try to overtake you mid-turn so you really gotta be diligent when turning left
That’s all I have for you! This is what I learned driving here after getting my license. All different from my country, so it took a bit of getting used to. Congrats on passing 🥳
watch out for bikes at intersections. People dart out of know where on bikes all the time.
Get a drive recorder. Got mine for 5k yens on Amazon, works perfectly and will eventually save my ass.
Don’t drive at the speed limit, people will hate you for it and will often overtake you and cut in front of you. It really feels like they want to cause an accident to kill you. 20km/h above the speed limit is the norm.
Keep your beginner mark sticker forever. Heck, stick 3-4 of them on the back of your car to make sure everyone notices, they will avoid you like the plague and keep their distance.
Be careful of taxis. They will cut across lanes on a whim to grab a person hailing them, stop suddenly and drive erratically generally.
Congratulations!
Stay away from cars withe blue registration plates with 外 on
I drive completely defensive. I stop and let everybody in front of me.
I go around big for all seniors on bikes, even if the fall over they won’t touch me. No chance of any trouble.
I don’t trust nobody!
Always use google maps and always accept any faster route changes.
Watch out for cops at busy stop signs, especially where you’re looking to merge into a multi lane road. They’ll lurk there and ping you if you don’t come to a complete stop.
Same for busy crosswalks that don’t have lights – if you roll through and a pedestrian starts crossing they’ll get you.
Use Waze for road trips on the expressways – it has the fixed speed cameras mapped out.
YMMV, looking at the other comments, I’ve not encountered these psycho drivers being talked about, worst ones I’ve encountered are the hiace vans which blacked out windscreens and chrome rims.
That being said it’s super relaxing to drive here compared to back home and I love my daily hourly commute.
People let you in to merge, let you join from a minor road. Etc. So much more friendly. Maybe I’m one of the psycho drivers haha.
But congratulations! Give yourself plenty of buffer time and your commutes should be pretty nice and uneventful!
Be very careful (mostly) of bycicles suddenly switching lanes from your left in order to avoid parked vehicles; coming from your left during left turns; going straight/right regardless of the light. Even when lights have been green for a while you will often see (at least in Tokyo) cyclists completely disregarding them. In places where lots of people walk the streets drive slow because you will get random bycicles and people suddenly jumping into the road without even looking at what’s coming from behind.
Other than that, be careful at intersections, especially when there’s a car wanting to turn left or right blocking other cars behind , and you’re on a central lane minding your own business when suddenly the blocked cars decide it’s a good idea to switch into your lane with literally no time to react. My approach there is to be defensive, keep my distance to the next car, slow down enough so I have time to break and pay attention to vehicles wanting to cut in front of you. It’s not as serious but in many cases cars turning left or right will also slightly turn to the opposite side exactly before making the turn, which can cause them to move out of their original lane. If you’re driving side by side with these guys be careful not to get hit by them.
Douche drivers: Hi-Ace, Vellfire, Alphard, Prius, BMW. If you see their cars customed or the driver has a bleach hair assume most of them will drive like an ass.
Watch-out for Kei truck ojisan – they don’t secure shit on their truck bed. They think if the cargo is heavy enough, they don’t need a harness.
Don’t speed excessively. If you’re on a normal road and you’re caught doing 30km/h over the speed limit, or if you’re on an expressway and you’re doing 40km/h over, you’ll be prosecuted for criminal speeding and have your license suspended for at least 30 days. That’s a criminal offense by the way so your case goes to court and you get a criminal record.
Here’s how you spot an unmarked police car. It’ll almost always be a plain colored sedan (Toyota Crown, Mark X, Subaru Legacy, etc.). They’ll always have a license plate issued in whatever prefecture you’re driving in. Their rear windows are usually completely tinted. There will be a second mirror under the rear view mirror. Sometimes you may see an antenna for their radio mounted on the outside. If your car is higher up, you may see either an outline of a trapdoor or a rubber stopper on the roof.
They have mobile speed cameras that they can set up on the side of the road to automatically crack down on speeding. They are small and hard to see if you’re driving past them. Sometimes they’ll even be mounted in the back of a van parked on the side of the road.
You can get a radar/laser detector installed in your car. The radar detectors work well and in my area the speed cameras still use a radar so mine does go off well before I arrive at the camera. However most places are switching over to laser based speed monitors in both speed cameras and patrol cars. The laser detectors will alert if you’re being lasered by the police, but by then it will already be too late for you to slow down.
Also, don’t be one of those assholes who just parks wherever they want.
> Any tips for a new driver in Japan?
Drive on the left.
Look out for kamikaze cyclists
Remember that pedestrians and bicyclists don’t look either way when crossing the road.
Okay I’ll probably end up telling you what you already know, but my personal experience was that I didn’t know. So, here goes!
You’re not Japanese and you don’t want to be caught speeding or bolting through a light turning red, even though a lot of Japanese people do it with impunity. What you want to do is pay attention if you can to the light changing, so you’re already going at a reasonable pace to stop if it’s going to turn red before you get into the intersection. It’s all very fine until someone ELSE is not paying enough attention and broadsides you, but you get arrested because you were running the red light.
If you are from a nation that drives on the right, you will particularly have to tell yourself, when making right turns “Stay left, stay left.” (I’ve found myself in the right turn lane for a large road, and someone who accidentally turned left into my lane looking quite shocked to see a car in front of them.)
Furthermore, for example, if you start watching for people obeying the laws, you’ll find there are a great many of them. For some reason, people disobeying the laws tend to stand out, though.
If you are in Kansai なにわ drivers are the worst.
Pedestrians absolutely under no circumstance that I have seen ever are aware of cars or traffic. They see the sidewalk and the light. Do not assume anyone sees you. I’m serious.
Also, Times car share is pretty great. We don’t own a car but we live very close to a Times. We save loads of cash, never pay for gas, insurance, car washing, or maintenance. I can’t recommend it enough.
Good luck.
I’m in Kansai so things may be different elsewhere.
1. Taxi drivers will try to hit you. Especially in Kyoto.
2. Always, always, ALWAYS look for pedestrians and cyclists when turning. Always. Triple check. And even when you do check, some person will come flying through on a bicycle anyway. Always!
3. Children will absolutely walk in front of moving vehicles, and if you try to explain to them how dangerous that is, they will fight you. Watch out for them.
4. In downtown Osaka, pedestrians and cyclists will also go out into oncoming traffic.
5. Yahoo Car Navi app tells you where all tollway cameras are (I’m sure other services do too).
6. Get an ETC card.
7. In the inaka, if you miss your exit on the tollway, get off at the next exit, explain to the person working the gate. They will take your ETC card, do a U-turn through the gate. They’ll give it back. Proceed as normal.
8. When waiting for a light to turn green, expect cars perpendicular to you to run their red light. Wait until you see them stop. This literally happened to me a few hours ago.
9. If someone needs to drive your car, or if you need to drive someone else’s car, you can get insurance for like ¥800/day at Lawson.
10. Learn to park backwards. It is the way.
11. Use the PPPark app to find the most affordable parking in any area.
12. Use the gogogs app to find the cheapest gas, which will always be at Costco. Get some kind of membership with some non-Costco gas chain. I am LINE friends with a nearby ENEJET and they send me a ¥3/L off coupon every month.