People in Kansai area are like that.lol
That is why Kanto-jin never want to drive in Kansai.

Nice try being cute though!

You are right. The usual speed limit for expressways is 100 km/h. I used to drive a light vehicle (kei-jidousha) until about 10 years ago. The speed limit for kei-jidousha was 80 km/h at the time, so I was confused when I wrote the above comment. As you wrote, the usual speed limit on expressways is 100 km/h for most vehicles including kei-jidousha now. Anyway, as I wrote, one can speed up to 120 km/h on expressways without fearing cops.

Except this isn’t just Osaka.

４）車の運転中、赤から青に変わったとき、関東ではゆっくりアクセルを踏んで発進しますが、関西は一気にアクセルでブーンと発進。これは、教習所の先生も言っていました。
http://oshiete1.goo.ne.jp/qa1379697.html?check_ok=1

このごろ赤信号無視が目に余ると思うのは私だけですか？・・・・・
大阪の運転講習所ではこの風潮に対し皆さんはそのような運転をしないようにと教えています。ここでいう風潮とは
「大阪では、青は進め、黄色は注意して進め、赤は更に注意して進め」だという事です。

そう云うのは、失礼ですが地方によるんじゃないですか？
大阪とか、特に堺、南河内方面とか．．．
東京なら、江戸川、足立、葛飾とか．
http://ziddy.japan.zdnet.com/qa539031.html

Everyone speeds, runs red lights, stops in the middle of the road to get out and go to a vending machine.

People　assume you were talking about the drivers.

It’s that it was red and the other side hadn’t started going yet

If you are talking about pedestrians starting walking at the intersection while the light for the walkers is still red when the cars in a vertical direction　stop because the light for the cars is red , yes,I see that often.
I live in Tokyo.
But I rarely see the cars going against the red-light.

The usual speed limit on expressways is 100kph, not 80. Certain areas, normally ones where the expressway is one lane each way, will be 80 (and it will be adjusted down in bad weather temporarily). Incidentally, a good rule of thumb for speeding in Japan is to watch the taxis, who know from experience where the cops like to hang out.

(2) is correct, but of course is not limited to Japan, both in the habit and the response of drivers.

I wrote that people run red lights in Japan, and I stand behind that. I live in Nara and I see people running red lights every day. And it’s not that they were in the intersection when it turned red. It’s that it was red and the other side hadn’t started going yet so they run the light because there is so much traffic everywhere they’re sick of waiting.

1) Someone on this thread wrote that drivers in Japan run red lights, but it’s not true. You shouldn’t enter a crossing when the signal is red. If cops find it, they never overlook it. However, if your car has passed over the advanced stop line when the signal is still yellow, you can run through the crossing, even if the signal turns red while you are still in the crossing.

2) The Japanese call the speed trap nezumi-tori, or mouse-catching (device). When drivers find cops carrying out nezumi-tori, they often try to let oncoming drivers know it by flashing headlights. If you find oncoming cars flashing their headlights with no apparent reason, you should reduce the speed since the flashing may be a sign that they found nezumi-tori.

3) Cops overlook slight speeding. As a rule of thumb, you can go 10 km/hr over the speed limit on usual roads. In the case of expressways, you can go up to 120 km/hr, even though the speed limit is 80 km/hr there. Cops never count these levels of speeding as speeding offenses.

Personally, I think we’re better off (two Fs) trying to look for similarities, not differences.

I freely admit I haven’t been to some of the less developed countries. This was a statement regarding my experience.

That’s why I thought they were making it into a “foreigner thing”. Admittedly, I may have read too much into it.

Thank you, Brad F., for actually reading me, not just claiming to.

Just want to mention two things:

1. I guess there are two MF’s here — although I post here from time to time I didn’t write the thing to Sophia.

2. My friend once saw a Swiss (supposedly) guy feign ignorance of Chinese, and then of English, and then of German, to try to get out of paying a three RMB fare on a Chinese bus. Pretty sad!

I mean, at least be internally consistent in your racist logic. >:[

And the accent is obvious even through the distortion

Impossible! “Eem-poh-see-ble” (native speakers don’t even say that, it would normally at least be “This is impossble.”)

Not for this! “noht – fohr – thees” (Yes, ees for thees, Baby)

Another Russian / Eastern Euro hostess.

She probably got the Benz by threatening suicide, too.

Of course Euro trash will blame America, as usual.
Racists.

But I live in California.

I always tell people that they need to stop saying that they speak English here, because they don’t.

They think they’re speaking the same language, but they’re not.
They’re actually better of speaking Spanish here.

Anyone who thinks Japanese drivers are dangerous, please go to Turkey. One day in Istanbul will make you nostalgic for Tokyo.

And what he’s further trying to explain is that the media is trying to make it appear as though all foreigners in Japan are “bad” and do what this woman did, as if Japanese people don’t have their own methods of trying to worm their way out of getting tickets in Japan.

How is this report trying to make it appear as if all foreingers in Japan are “bad” and Japanese people don’t have their own methods of trying to worm their way out of getting tickets?

1. The cop seems (sorry, I don’t understand Japanese) to speak to her like she’s a real person. Here in the US, being stopped for speeding is a “gateway” offense that could lead to bigger crimes, such as drugs, DUI, illegal weapons, etc., so the cops tend to treat speeders like hard-core criminal suspects.

2. At the end of the video, the cop direct traffic to allow the motorist to get back into traffic. This NEVER happens in the US. Here, you’re left on your own and if you screw up you can get ANOTHER ticket !!

If she wanted to do this in English, why didn’t she say so? Her lie was rather easy to spot. I bet she has connections with some huge company with really expensive lawyers. Scary.

If I had to analogize it, there are at least as many “bad cops” in a force as there are D or even C students in any typical classroom. Additionally, a good number of those “bad cops” are great as people but total douches as cops.

(Of course, this special treatment stirs up a lot of anger fueling a different kind of special treatment to minorities, but that’s a topic for another day. ^_^)

LOL

I think she posts under the username “Sarge”

I totally agree that Japanese drivers rarely follow traffic laws to the letter, but if you think they’re the worst then you should take a trip to some less developed countries. Riding in taxis in Thailand and Vietnam can be downright scary – even Korean taxi drivers will drive like Speed Racer if you ask them to.

I’m sure things are even worse in other places, but those are the only ones I can speak of personally and were all worse than Japan. It’s hardly the worst.

Seconded. Cops in the inaka have little better to do, roads are relatively straight and empty, and people drive faster. I have friends in the inaka who have been caught several times. I feel safer in the city. myself.

These things can spiral way wrong, way fast — even at the mundane level of the street cop. And when they do, there are extremely unpleasant complications.

And if the officer wants to just rip the ticket off the pad and stuff it in my shirt pocket without saying a word, that’s fine with me. But I’m speaking English anytime I open my mouth.

Sorry if I’m coming off as a prick, but I’m quite pathological about not taking any chance if I can help it.

Wow….leaving aside obvious comments about pots, kettles, and specific colors, it would seem that the cops (in glitch’s case) were quite aware of a need to have some english ability on hand …. i.e., that its a simple matter of logic that some people caught in a speed trap in Japan may not speak Japanese. So reasonable measures were taken by the cops. There is no onus here. Glitch may have easily been a short-term visitor or tourist (something Japan ostensibly wants to promote). Japan sees itself as an important member of 1st world international community (rightly by virtue of its economy, state of development, and many other metrics), but as we all know remains an outlier in some oddball areas like english ability. But in this case they had an english speaking cop on hand. Unless the cop, like LB, also felt uncontrollable need to chastise glitch on supposed “onus” of language learning, it would seem in this case that Japan, though overly-conservative and misguided about some practical harmonization issues, is nonetheless far far ahead of LB on this issue.

But we’re talking about a speeding ticket. Radar guns with digital readouts/printouts. Advanced knowledge of Japanese is not required to understand what is happening. Hell, most people figure it out themselves as one of the first things anyone does when a cop comes up behind them is check their speedometer. Anyone who says “yeah, sure, I speak a bit of Japanese but I’m not taking a speeding ticket unless the officer addresses me in English” is, IMHO, just being a prick.

Don’t break the law.