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Japanese cop overlooked foreigners driving without licenses

international-license1

A Tokyo police officer has resigned after it came to light that he failed to take action against two foreign drivers who did not have driver’s licensees:

According to the metro police, the officer issued one of the tickets for an illegal lane change and the other one for ignoring a signal. The two foreigners were stopped in Minato, on April 12 and May 3.

The two foreigners did not speak Japanese and the police officer was quoted as saying, “It was too much trouble to investigate them via an interpreter.”

Judging from past conversations with other foreigners in Japan, I’d wager that quite a lot of Japanese police officers are guilty of the same failure to carry out their jobs. The “I don’t speak Japanese” excuse seems to be very effective when used on traffic cops who are can’t be troubled with the language barrier.

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20 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - July 18, 2009 at 7:57 am

Categories: Foreigners in Japan, General Japan Tags: gaijin

LB

Not punishing foreigners who are breaking the law because of a “language barrier”? So this means Japanese, who can’t use this excuse, have been getting harsher punishments? That’s… that’s… discrimination! Those racist bastards! We’ve got to launch a protest! No unequal treatment!

Oh, wait… it is in the foreigners’ favor… well, I guess it’s OK then…(sarcasm)
AL

Happened to me on the TOH-MEI Kosoku, with my buddies back in 1994. We borrowed my buddy’s dad’s car in Roppongi and took it for a drive to Mt Fuji. The motorway was jammed, so we hit the shoulder, only to find that they had a traffic stop control. They pulled us over, got us out of the car, and when they all found us to be Yanks with only California licenses, they lets us go! hahahahahahahahahahaha!

Those were the days.
james

actualy you can drive with forign driving licences for half year in the forign country.(so much i know about) then you have to get the local one.. second to be a forigner dont means you can be an idiot..
http://www.usguyintokyo.com Dave Faulkmore

What’s the fine for driving without a license in Japan. Maybe it’s worth paying the fine and skipping going for the local license which costs more than 300,000 yen i heard. I costs $15 in the states.

Driving without a license is a form of political protest at those prices.

The Overthinker

Driving without a licence is subject to a fine of up to 300,000 yen and potentially up to a year in jail – last I heard you don’t have to go to jail to get a licence, so it’s a no-brainer.

And it does not cost 300,000 yen to get a licence in Japan. In fact it costs 3,000 yen or so to sit the test at the Vehicle Licencing Centre. Do not confuse driving school, which can be pricey (though 300,000 is at the upper end) with the actual licence cost. Thus driving without a licence is not a political protest against prices – you want to protest driving school prices, then don’t go. Simple as that. It is perfectly legal to just roll up to the VLC and take the test. As many times as you like. Of course if you already have an overseas licence things are even easier – just get it exchanged for a Japanese one.

helical

I believe, at least in some prefectures, they changed the rules in the past couple years so that one does need to take a simple test now even if in possession of an international driver’s license.

Not that I would want to drive even if I could.
It certainly seems better than what I hear about traffic in LA or NYC, but being from the Pacific Northwest where drivers are renowned for being mellow and nice, the driving in Tokyo still scares me.

The Overthinker

It’s possible that some places make you take a test (this will also apply differently depending on your licence: US drivers, I believe, have a bit of a hassle as their licences are issued by states rather than the state, so recipricol arrangements are harder). However this is still the easiest method.

Driving in Tokyo is not that bad, though I have seldom done it myself, not living anywhere near there. But in more rural areas a car is very useful indeed.
jikku

I believe you have to take a simple test to see if you know the Japanese road signs.

http://www.japandriverslicense.com/roadsign.asp

LB

1. What the Overthinker said, it doesn’t cost 300,000 yen

2. There is this little thing called “the law”. Anyone who thinks it may be worth it to break the law and just pay a fine rather than abide by the law of the land has some serious variation in their moral compass, which leads to…

3. But we can tell that anyway as we are dealing with a shady event organizer who charges one door fee for foreigners, another lower one for “asian women”, a higher fee for “asian men” and a blatantly discriminatory you’ve-gotta-be-shitting-me punitive door fee for those over 45.

Then again, looking at the mug shots of you and you’re fellow “hosts”, I can see why you might want to limit competition…

The Overthinker

“Foreigners 2,500 yen. Asian women 2,000 yen. Asian men 3,000 yen. >=45 years old 8,000 yen.”

Holy crap. Hey, what about Asian men who are also foreigners? Do they get in for 500 yen off? Or do Chinese girls have to pay 500 yen extra? This wouldn’t be falling into the cliche of “foreigner = white (or possibly black, as they have this cool rap hip-hop thing going, so that’s okay)” would it? Anyway, anyone who organizes entry fees like this immediately loses any right to claim discrimination.

HamachiMan

Bravo LB, spot on!
Eddie

He’s definitely not the only officer who has overlooked foreigners driving without licenses, I know of 4 people who have been stopped in different areas of Tokyo and gotten away with it, one of them was stopped more than once!
AnotsuSagami

Yeah because everyone knows that getting a break on a 300,000 yen ticket because a cop can’t be bothered makes up for being told after an interview that the company doesn’t hire foreigners (or sometimes before, but the former is considerably more annoying), or that they can’t hire you because your name is too foreign-sounding, or being surrounded on the street by 3 police officers threatening a night stick enema because you walked by a koban and “looked suspicious”. BTW, I have experienced these things first-hand, none of this “he said, she said” madness. I guess I should just bend over and take it because I might get a break on a ticket because the cop may not give a toss. I don’t even drive.

Eddie

Hahaha. Boo hoo, being a foreigner in Japan is soooo hard, isn’t it?

There’s nothing wrong with a company in Japan not employing you because you’re a foreigner. This country owes you nothing.

Besides, you’re living in a country with a very low rate of immigration, this not America / Europe / UK, there are gonna be differences. Look at how immigrants were treated in the West when immigration was first taking place over there. People were treated a million times worse.

As for the police, they are pretty bad, but NOWHERE near as bad as the police in the UK / US for intimidation or beatdowns of minorities. Go ask Rodney King wassup with that stuff. I remember that the London Met killed a foreign man over his innocent “suspicious” activities, that is never going to happen in Japan.

AnotsuSagami

Do you live in Japan Eddie? You DO realize that according to the toothless laws in Japan, it’s illegal to hire based upon race, creed, or nationality. So that means that on paper in their own laws there IS something wrong with them not hiring me based on my being foriegn. The only exceptions to nationality are government jobs. I see you’re one of those idiots who thinks that racism and discrimination are ok because it’s worse somewhere else. So because it’s worse elsewhere, Japanese can treat me as less than human and selectively enforce laws designed to protect me? According to your warped logic, maybe we should bring back segregation in the US, because discrimination was a lot worse in South Africa. Yeah, you’re an apologist if I ever saw one. BTW Japan owes me plenty as one who contributes to taxes and the gnp of this country, just like Japan owes every worker on Japanese soil protection under law.

ponta

There’s nothing wrong with a company in Japan not employing you because you’re a foreigner.

I interpreted it as saying just because you were a foreigner it didn’t not mean a company had to employ you.

According to your warped logic, maybe we should bring back segregation in the US, because discrimination was a lot worse in South Africa

No, but the logic used in a discussion where people tell Japan to follow the suit of other G8 countries and such make it sound as if Japan should bring in the similar prejudice against blacks, Latinos, Muslims, Jews, gypsies,etc. and more discrimination’s, hate crimes, racial profiling and be more cautious about them.

The Overthinker

“There’s nothing wrong with a company in Japan not employing you because you’re a foreigner.”

Yeah, but being told AFTER the interview is what is sucky.

“This country owes you nothing.”

Wny not? Being a legal resident entitles you to a number of perks than a tourist can’t get, let along someone who isn’t in the country. A state owes the people within it precisely what it has decided to owe them.

http://curiousjapan.blogspot.com brian

I had a somewhat similar instance a few months ago. I was driving a rental car at California speed (about 80 MPH~134KPH)on the new Shin Meishin Expressway. ( A great, scenic, high speed roadway, by the way)from Mie ken to Kyoto. The limit is 100KPH (62MPH!) but the road seems designed for much higher speed. I knew I was above the limit and was watching in my mirror for police, but next thing I knew the blinking lights appeared behind me. My sphincter tightened and I thought, despite trying to be a good gaijin, this will probably cost a lot and I am going to jail. I lifted off the accelerator, the patrol car pulled along side and the officer in the passenger seat(closest to me)hung out the window furiously waving a flag for me to pull over. However, the moment he saw my gaijin face, he grimaced and turned to the officer driving the patrol car, said something to him, turned back to me and indicated with a hand signal to slow down and they sped off! Wow! I was happy to be a gaijin that day! He really looked disappointed when he saw me since he probably thought they had an easy catch. My Japanese girlfriend was in the car with me, so we certainly could have communicated, but I guess this officer had had time consuming stops with non- Japanese speakers before and thought I was the same. So rather than go to the trouble of writing me a speeding ticket, he waved me off; signaling with his baton for me to slow down then accelerating away. I had a valid international drivers license and full insurance on the car, but I was thankful we didn’t get a citation. But I wonder how much are speeding tickets in Japan anyway?

The Overthinker

It depends how fast you are going. They are calculated differently for expressways: rather than how many kph over the limit, they go by the percentage you are over the limit. 130kph is not that bad – at a rough guess, about 20-30,000 yen. Japanese expressways are designed to be driven at high speed, but the limit is unfortunately rather too low. It should be 120.

BTW, there is no way you would be jailed just for doing 134 on an expressway.

http://sleepytako.blogspot.com David

According to my pals who where here in the 80′s that was common practice, as was drunken driving and mooning the traffic cameras.

Japanese cop overlooked foreigners driving without licenses

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