Japan: > Road fatalities per 100 000 population: 2.6
USA: > Road fatalities per 100 000 population: 13.8
[0]https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/japan-road-safe... [1]https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatalit...
You can see it in the stats too,
https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state...
Places like MA and NY are, I think, known for their rude drivers but the fatalities per distance: anomalously low.
My theory is that Japanese drivers are our brothers in attentive, intentional driving.
An alternative theory is that population dense areas like cities promote aggressive driving, but also tend to host slower-speed collisions just by virtue of all the traffic. However, this seems unlikely, because it is far too simple and straightforward. Also wouldn’t justify a great long ramble about the superiority of my local driving culture, so I can’t bear for it to be true.
However I suspect there are less road accidents there per capita than here in Australia since everybody there has to pay attention and is patient with other drivers. Australian drivers either tune out or are too aggressive (road rage) and cause more accidents.
Sydney has this weird thing where cars drive full speed to red lights and break at the last minute which is pretty frightening when crossing.
I have driven tens of thousands of kilometres in the US on roadtrips, and the driving there is quite insane - speeding and dangerous, aggressive manoeuvres. Doing 10-20km over the limit is standard and anyone sticking to the limit is the outlier.
There is no point debating on US car stats, we are the best and worst at everything car related.
If people are driving fewer miles in Japan that means that the built environment is better.
Is there higher usage of mass transit, cycling, and walking in Japan? You bet there is.
And don't give me that "America is oh so big and spread out, Japan is on an island" nonsense. 80%+ of Americans live in urban areas. It once had the largest passenger rail network in the world. This is a matter of intentional city planning and deliberate choices. Not every island nation is as transit-oriented as Japan (just look at the Carribbean or even the UK).
When divided highways were first being introduced globally, Japan's government made an intentional choice to invest in the Shinkansen instead of roadways. That was not an inevitability as there were voices there that preferred road investment.
I've never seen dedicated police supervision. I have seen directors around road construction. That's no different than in the states.
In America, it is literally against the law to enter an intersection unless you can completely cross it without stopping. That means if a pedestrian is crossing, you wait outside of the intersection for them to finish crossing first.
In Japan? With pedestrians crossing? You enter the intersection and hopefully you stop inches from the crosswalk in the middle of the intersection while you wait for the road to clear and then go through if there is space.
Yes, even professional drivers do it. It's fucking insane if you ask me. How much time do you save? Seconds? And you risk a higher chance of running someone over?
Japan is world renowned for their hospitality, but Japanese drivers are by far some of the biggest assholes I have ever seen in my life.
This is false: it depends on the state. In Arizona, it is the law that you can enter the intersection to turn, and then if the light turns red, everyone has to wait until you complete your turn before they can enter the intersection.
xD
If it is of any consolation, all the gaijin in my office agree with you.
> Some particularly busy intersections require dedicated police officer supervision to shepherd the drivers because they're so unruly and disrespectful of pedestrians and other drivers.
So like any intersection in New York.
> There are many reasons Japan is more accepting of letting children be children, but most of that is social factors and motivators that are decidedly different from American ones. Cars are ultimately just a really small part, if any.
Nah. It's cars, more specifically street parking.
- Stopping in the middle of the road whenever they feel like it. Just turn on the blinkers and boom, the road became a parking slot! And they don't care if it is a straight segment or the middle of a curve.
- Overtaking other cars on the left at an intersection. I don't know here, but in my home country that is illegal, because it is very dangerous. I have seen many near misses because of it.
- They don't turn on the lights as long as there is a tiny sliver of light in the sky. Every day I see people driving with the lights off after sunset, or during heavy rain or snow! Seriously, who drives with the lights off during a fucking blizzard with less than 10 meters of visibility?!?
Taxis and occasionally even limousine buses are notoriously guilty of this...
Sure, better than falling asleep and crashing, but come on, all the konbinis around here have parking slots big enough for trucks.
For example, in my romanian road code you are not permitted to turn right at a red light unless there is a separate green blinking arrow pointing that way (and no, the blinking green isn't always there). I know that in the US the default is you can turn.
How about stopping on the side of the road? Here it's permitted anywhere it's not explicitly forbidden. And I think taxis have an exception and they can really stop anywhere for a few moments to pick up/drop people. They may get cursed at but it's legal.
Here's a little mind twister:
In the US there are Right Arrow signals. A Red signal indicates you can turn right if it's safe just like ordinary Red signals. A Green signal indicates you can turn right, obviously.
Wait, what?
You see, this Right Arrow signal exists alongside ordinary signals at an intersection. Specifically when the ordinary signals are Green (so you can go straight ahead or turn as appropriate) but the Right Arrow signal is Red, you cannot turn right. Usually this is because someone is crossing the intersection and you would risk running them over.
This specific arrangement is very rare.
Never saw single red lights. Just the blinking green when it's permitted. Btw blinking green implies yield to other cars, pedestrians or anything else that's in your way.
This is NOT at all my experience here in Tokyo. Drivers are generally very careful around crosswalks, and for good reason: if a driver hits a pedestrian (or cyclist), it's automatically the driver's fault, with almost no exceptions.
The only really bad drivers I normally see here are some taxi drivers, driving too fast on narrow streets in the city. Everyone else is generally careful.
But don't forget: here in Tokyo, most drivers are professionals (delivery trucks or taxis usually), not private individuals. Your experience in more rural or car-centric parts of Japan are likely to be very different.
The thing is, you get used to it. Living in an eastern european country that hasn't caught up on infrastructure, I'm used to driving on narrow winding roads.
What happened when I first drove a couple hundred km on a freeway[1]? I had to ask everyone else in the car to keep me talking because I was literally falling asleep.
[1] Or whatever the US term is for the roads with at least 2 lanes, directions separated by a fence and grade separated intersections.
There's plenty of shit drivers there as everywhere but the physical environment (not the least of which street parking not being a thing) enables people to exist a lot more safely and conveniently outside of a car than in the US and the data bears that out. Eg narrow roads improves safety for motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists alike.
Bullshit. Almost 6 years in Aomori, and rare is the month that I don't see a car crashed on the side of the road, even on sunny summer days. Meanwhile in my home region (Extremadura, Spain, also a rural region) I could go years without seeing a single crash. I am sure that the design and maintenance of the roads has something to do with it.
Have you actually experienced Japanese drivers? They make American drivers look absolutely noble (and truthfully, we are) by comparison.
For starters, and this applies to both individual and professional drivers:
* They don't give way to emergency vehicles blaring the sirens.
* They don't wait for people to finish crossing intersections.
* They don't let other drivers into their lane.
* They drive absurdly fast.
* Most roads are very narrow.
Some particularly busy intersections require dedicated police officer supervision to shepherd the drivers because they're so unruly and disrespectful of pedestrians and other drivers.
There are many reasons Japan is more accepting of letting children be children, but most of that is social factors and motivators that are decidedly different from American ones. Cars are ultimately just a really small part, if any.