Driving in Japan

It’s been a while since I last posted here.  I’d apologize but I’m not really sorry.  I haven’t had anything to talk about.  Fortunately for me and the one person who reads anything not VN-related on this blog, I’ve got something to talk about.  In my previous post I’d mentioned that I had been accepted into JET as an alternative.  On the 11th of May, I got a call saying that I had been upgraded to short-list, which essentially meant I was going if I so wanted.

Since July 27, I have been living in my assigned area.  I currently live in a tiny town on Shikoku.  It has been a hell of an experience just moving here, let alone settling in, starting my job, and all that jazz.  It has been a total blast and I am so glad to have had this opportunity, and as long as they’re willing to keep me around (though granted contracts can only extend out to 5 years) I’d love to stay here.  Of course, I’m only two months into my appointment so that may change, but I’m not anticipating it.

This is not to say, of course, that everything has been completely awesome and super duper.  There are issues here.  Driving is one of those issues, and it is my hugest tick in this place.

My problem with driving here stems from being spoiled by American speed limits.  Let me paint a picture for you.  In Arizona, the absolute slowest speed limit I ever ran across was 25mph (not including temporary elementary school zones, which are a minor nuisance).  In terms of kph, that’s 40.23.  That’s the absolute fastest you can go in town.  Which is fine, and makes sense, and it’s the same as here.  No, my problem comes when I have to make a long haul to one of my schools on the edge of the township (my town was formed as a result of a merger of several smaller towns, so everything is pretty spread out).  See, unless you’re on the expressway, the highest speed limit is 50kph.  Add in the 10kph cushion that police give you, and you’re sitting at a thrilling 37.28mph.  Compare this to the 45mph speed limits of America.  With a 5mph cushion, and police that won’t bother touching you until you’re doing more than 55mph, the difference is pretty severe.

Japan also has a serious issue with the fact that their roads are not designed for people to drive on.  The road leading to my apartment is barely big enough for my car, and I don’t drive anything huge.  I drive a small Mitsubishi coupe.  And if I’m driving on that road, there is literally no room for anything – or anyone – except my car.  And this isn’t really limited to this road.  There are several roads that are two-way roads, but barely big enough for one car to get around the other assuming someone pulls over to allow the other to pass.  And thank god that Japanese courtesy extends to driving, because if they drove like Americans there would be so many crashes here.

I should take a moment to address that, actually.  Japanese drivers drive me nuts.  But they drive me nuts for the wrong reasons, I suppose.  People here drive very, very cautiously.  Which makes sense given their road conditions.  But again, for someone used to driving very fast, it bugs the shit out of me when they’re barely going 40kph and slow down going into a very light curve.  The point I am trying to make, though, is that Japanese drivers are actually quite good.  I am constantly being surprised at how people here actually slow down when it rains, unlike my humble home in Arizona where jackasses in huge trucks and SUVs see water-slick roads and heavy downpours and think their best course of action is to stomp on the accelerator.  It’s a nice trade to not have to worry about dying because of some nutjob who doesn’t know the first thing about driving but was given a license anyways.

But they are, perhaps, too cautious.  Any kind of curve causes them to brake.  They slow down at random points for reasons that I can’t discern, despite them not driving too far over the speed limit, or the lack of weather issues.  It’s not so bad for other Japanese people, but for an American who loves the winding terrain here and driving at questionable speeds through the curves in a car that isn’t really designed for the kind of handling I put it through, it kind of sucks.

Allow me to give you an example that explains the kind of driver I am.  On a very specific stretch of highway with a very noted lack of police presence (or indeed, presence of any kind of traffic at the times I was driving it, IE sunday mornings at 3 AM, which is the only reason I ever dared to do anything like this), I would,  coming home from hanging out with friends, punch the accelerator and hit anywhere from 120-130mph.  If you’ve ever driven at those kinds of speeds, with the windows down, enjoying the rush of wind and adrenaline with any kind of appropriate music, you know that feel.  It’s a special kind of sensation that is downright addicting.  I didn’t get to do it too often, but I was hooked from the few times I do it.

Every now and again I can recreate the sensation, even if I can’t recreate the scenario.  One of my schools, for instance, lies on the other side of a mountain.  The road that takes me to that school is a very winding road, and I routinely blitz it at about 50kph, which is utterly insane to anyone who lives here because the roads are the kind I mentioned before, barely large enough for two cars to be on at the same time.  It has a pair of hairpin turns that are so much fun to go into.  But I’m always hyper-alert on corners because sometimes the road doesn’t actually have a guard rail, and also because I’ve got to be quick on the brakes in case someone’s just on the other side of that turn puttering along at 25-30kph.

I probably come off like a typical American asshole who can’t understand why other countries don’t do everything the way glorious America does, because America is superior number one.  It’s not that.  I understand why Japanese people drive the way they do, and I am fully prepared to admit that the way I’m driving is dangerous in comparison to the way they drive.  It’s not that I think Japanese drivers are all terrible.  It’s mostly my desire to drive faster and more recklessly that gives me issues with roads in Japan.  It’s the way that I learned to drive in the only environment I had, and I’ve been driving for seven years.  I’ve got a lot of habits in regards to speed and corners, and it’s hard to break them when I have such tantalizing courses available.  Even if I get stuck behind someone driving too slow for their own good.

In short, my main issue here is speed limits.  I don’t want to drive half an hour to my farthest school when I could easily, and safely, get there in fifteen with a higher speed limit.  Give me higher limits dammit.