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Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

>Because in the US they would be roadkill,

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.

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What you're saying doesn't hold up.

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...

I would be more interested in the stat per miles driven. I suspect the US still is worse than Japan but a lower ratio.

There is no point debating on US car stats, we are the best and worst at everything car related.

Why does miles driven matter? Fewer people are dying, that's what matters. The fact that I have to drive further/faster than someone in Japan to accomplish the same task is increasing my chance of death and that is bad. The fact that the USA has no regulations stopping its citizens from buying 6,000 pound trucks that have bad pedestrian visibility as a driver with a pulse-check standard vehicle license is bad.

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.

That’s because they’re still far better drivers than us.

I’ve only really driven much in the Northeastern US and the Portland, OR area. The Portland drivers were much less aggressive and also much scarier. There just isn’t a tradition of moving with intention out there. They drift aimlessly about, sliding thoughtlessly through your blind spot. It is maddening.

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.

It's amazing to see in China too ... cars pulling out everywhere in front of each other, weaving in and out of traffic.

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.

Having lived in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia, Australia seems to me by far the worst drivers. Incredibly aggressive, insane speeding and road rage, everywhere, all the time. And it’s not just tolerated, it’s completely normal and accepted, even considered cool and encouraged. Just what.

This is my experience too. Pedestrian crossings are completely ignored and indicating is optional. Combined with this god awful SUVs, Australia is an unpleasant place to be a pedestrian.

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.

This is quite different to my part of inner-suburban Australia. I find drivers here to be almost universally polite and accommodating. And there is barely any speeding. Someone doing more than 1-3 km over the limit on the expressway is a clear outlier. Maybe it's only like this around here though.

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.

Lived in Japan 20 years and still spend ~2 months a year there including last month. Never experienced any of this except "most roads are very narrow" which is only semi-true. It's true many small roads are, um, small. But there are plenty of big roads as well.

I've never seen dedicated police supervision. I have seen directors around road construction. That's no different than in the states.

Here's some more detail concerning pedestrians crossing intersections that I mentioned earlier.

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.

>In America, it is literally against the law to enter an intersection unless you can completely cross it without stopping.

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.

Waiting on the middle of the intersection sounds perfectly normal to me as a European as well. It's not to save the few seconds of getting there, but to claim your slot on the intersection from cross traffic. And of course you don't speed up till the crosswalk.

> 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.

If it is of any consolation, all the gaijin in my office agree with you.

None of that laundry list ultimately matters when Japanese speed limits are so much lower; speed is what kills. (Also, Japanese drivers are used to keeping their cars in lane, are used to sharing the road, and are driving much smaller and lighter vehicles). I suspect that what you perceive as "absurdly fast" is probably very different between those countries: because of the absurdly wide roads in the US, absurdly dangerous speeds get normalised. Someone doing 25% over the speed limit in Japan is still driving much slower than a driver in a comparable neighbourhood in the US.

> 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.

Absolutely agree on street parking. If you're driving down a clear street, you can see a kid chasing a ball out from their driveway, or someone about to scoot across the road. When the area is full of parked cars, your visibility is going to be down to nothing in some of these situations.

>* They don't wait for people to finish crossing intersections.

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.

> Most roads are very narrow.

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.

I live in Aomori, I have been commuting every single day for the last 6 years, and I totally agree with you. There are three more points that make me mad:

- 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?!?

>Just turn on the blinkers and boom, the road became a parking slot!

Taxis and occasionally even limousine buses are notoriously guilty of this...

I wonder what subtle differences are there between road codes across countries.

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.

>I know that in the US the default is you can turn.

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.

Hmm here there would be a normal 3 color light specifically for turning right, with 3 right pointing arrows.

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.

They are. Heck, one time I even saw a truck driver just taking a nap! Like, he decided to stop in the middle of the road and sleep!

Sure, better than falling asleep and crashing, but come on, all the konbinis around here have parking slots big enough for trucks.

I lived in Japan for five years and I don't agree with you.

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.

> 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.

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