Last night at an intersection I regularly cross in Shinjuku, a cyclist nearly mowed me down at a red light while I had the right of way and had the nerve to shout at me. I noticed he had a tablet attached to his handlebars he was focusing on.
This morning, the same light was solid red for a good five seconds when a large truck plowed right through it. A few months ago, I even saw a car run the light in front of Shinjuku central police station with a cop car one car behind it. The cops did nothing!
Sorry for the rant. Stay safe crossing people, especially at night.
8 comments
Running red lights and rolling through stop signs are a big problem everywhere. You just have to be careful, especially right after a signal changes.
I think for every one cyclist I’ve seen stop for a pedestrian crossing, I’ve seen a dozen go through full speed regardless of how many people crossing. Insane stuff
Yeah last night the English club leader was driving me to English club approaching a red light without stopping. She finally stopped (across the stop line) when a car zoomed past on the perpendicular road. My inaka roads don’t get much traffic so she basically ignores red lights. We are going to get into a crash someday 😂
😂 you should come to Hokkaido, if it’s yellow just speed up before it turn red 😂
I came to this post expecting neighbourhoods where traffic lights had wreaths and bulbs on them. I am leaving disappointed.
How many people have to die for the cops to do anything about the fucking phones
Central Tokyo resident here. I definitely noticed that the number of people who ignore traffic lights has increased recently. I think there was a drastic change in the last two or three years. It wasn’t so bad before that. I see cars running red lights almost every day now, sometimes couple times a day. And I don’t even drive so much! I drive maybe only 20-30 minutes a day at most. It doesn’t worry me so much when I’m behind a wheel. But I’m so worried about pedestrians. Especially kids. It’s so sad to realize that police won’t do shit until there is a precedent. It’s so bad that people have to die for the government to do something about it.
I love how taxis go through red lights in front of a Koban ALL the time. I have seen many times and myself included people dodging taxis who ran through a long gone red light.
Then when I cross when it’s safe (there is no car moving anywhere on the horizon) the same koban cop takes his loudspeaker “please respect the light kudasai”
If red light don’t matter, I’ll choose when it’s safe to cross thank you.
I have also had indeed bicycles going high speed driving on the right (another issue altogether) and running through a red light. Really lucky I hadn’t stepped yet because I had not thought of checking that far to my left when all cars were already stopped.