Driving in Japan is in many ways a unique experience, not in the least thanks to the cultural differences with other countries. Some of those differences may feel awkward or even wrong, depending on where you come from (and how people drive there).
I have written before about the strangest traffic signs you are likely to encounter in Japan (and the five most common exceptions to road signs), but driver behavior is not always signposted.
Here is a list of 10 things which may feel weird or stange when driving in Japan, if you are coming from Europe or the US. Even though the Japanese drive to the left, their driving culture is quite different from that of the UK and its former colonies (including Australia).
1. Pedestrians Completely Disregard Cars
Japanese cars share the road with other traffic, in particular bicycles and pedestrians. They are allocated a narrow strip to the side of the road, often no wider than 30 centimeters and only separated from the cars by a thin white line.
But instead of being careful not to be run over by the cars, the pedestrians completely disregard them. Even to the extent that they may cross the road when cars are approaching. And if they are elderly, which many pedestrians in Japan are, they will walk slowly. Very slowly.
Children, on the other hand, are more disciplined (but can be impulsive, like children anywhere). They learn to reach up their hand as they cross the street, which actually helps make them more visible on streets with cars parked on the edges.
One reason is that pedestrians have absolute right of way. The only place you are not allowed to walk is the expressways. If you come up on a crosswalk with pedestrians waiting to cross, you should even stop and let them pass (although few people do). And this applies 24 hours a day – even at night when visibility is low. And pedestrians are practically invisible, since they are not wearing reflectors.
2. Cars Can Meet In Impossibly Narrow Streets
The street may be barely wide enough for your own car to pass, and pedestrians have to step into the doorways of the houses when you squeeze by. And then another car comes barreling in the other direction!
In residential areas the lanes between the houses were laid out before cars were common, and maybe even while the area was full of rice fields and nobody had thought about building houses there. If there was any traffic, it would have been pedestrians. Draught animals were hardly used in Japan, and horses were anyway reserved for high-ranking officials and their couriers.
Two pedestrians meeting take up much less space than two cars. They have no problem with the road being narrow. Which the cars do. In some places the roads are so narrow (and there is so much traffic) that the narrow streets are unidirectional (although not the entire roads, only sections of them).
Japanese drivers have less problems than their cars with the narrow roads. They can scrape past each other (without touching) in places where a Western driver would be surprised to see two pedestrians fit. Much less cars.
3. You Have To Stop At Railroad Intersections
One of the things visiting drivers find the most confusing is that you have to stop at railroad intersections. Not that you have to stop while the lights are flashing, the bells are ringing, and the barriers are going down. They get that.
But in Japan, each car approaching has to stop in front of a railroad intersection, roll down the window so the driver can hear if any trains are approaching, and look carefully to the left and right. and then they can go, one at the time.
This takes some time getting used to, but makes sense if you consider that there are trains very frequently, and an earthquake (which are not quite as frequent as the trains, but almost) can cut the electricity so the signals do not work. Although it might also move the tracks so trains derail… maybe it does not make so much sense after all.
4. Even On Highways, The Speed Limit Is 80 KPH
The normal speed limit in Japan is 30 kilometers per hour in residential areas, 40 kph on wide city streets, 50 or 60 on roads outside the city. So it should continue to rise exponentially when you get out on the freeways, right?
Wrong. The speed limit in the Japanese expressways is 80 kilometers per hour. And that is in good weather. When there is fog, ir snow, or heavy rain, then the speed limit can be even lower (and even if it is not, you should drive like it is, because it is quite dangerous to drive fast in bad weather conditions).
The speed limit is posted on signs along the road, but those signs have LEDs that show the speed limit. Which means the speed limit is not fixed. Sometimes it is 80, sometimes lower, as indicated on the signs.
And sometimes higher. There are speed limit signs with LED marking the speed you are allowed to drive, and they can be changed due to road conditions, sometimes lowering the speed to 60 or even 40, as the weather does not allow you to drive faster. While driving conditions are usually good, weather that makes driving harder like heavy rain and winds (or even typhoons), fog, or heavy snowfall will result in decreased speed limits.
Sometimes, the weather is good and cars are scarce, however. In such situations, you might find the speed limit increased to 100 or above.
5. Honk Or Wink By Way Of Thanks
In a country where other cars are waiting around almost every corner, communication with other drivers is the alpha and omega of traffic safety. So being nice to other drivers is the key to making everything flow smoothly. An example is letting other drivers in when they are turning into the main road from a side street, especially if there is a red light ahead that would have made you wait anyway. Waiting while someone is parking (usually by backing in), letting them go ahead on those impossibly narrow streets, and similar acts of kindness are usually met with appreciation.
Expressing that appreciation is as important as being kind, and that takes two common forms: A very short honk on your horn to say thanks; or in situations where that does not work, for instance at night and you should be quiet, or when you only want to show appreciation to the car ahead, a quick flash (three or four winks) of your hazard lights.
6. Disregarding The Speed Limit
The Japanese speed limit is usually 40 kilometers per hour on normal roads (sometimes 50 or 60 if the area is sparsely populated and it is a wide road), but the Japanese drivers do not seem to care much. In Japan, the goal is never to get there as fast as possible, it is always to make traffic flow more smoothly.
So most of the time, drivers will adapt their speed to each other, never mind the speed limit (in practice, they rarely get to drive faster than 60, though).
To make sure that you keep the same speed as everyone is much more important than the speed limit – with one major exception: in front of schools. There, drivers will slow down to 30 kph, since the risk of children running out into the road is so big.
Even if you wanted to drive faster than 50 on an ordinary road it would not be feasible, either. You would run into delivery trucks stopping at the side of the road, traffic lights, cyclists, and other obstacles which slow down driving. Keeping the same speed as everyone else is a good idea.
7. The Road Signs Are On The Road Bed
Japanese road signs are smaller than the road signs in other countries, and often placed with long intervals or in locations where they are hard to see. As long as it is not winter, however, this does not matter.
It does not matter because the information on the road signs is painted on the road bed. Sometimes more information or more visible than the road sign, like where the roadbed is painted red in front of stop signs and traffic lights.
And in winter, the roadbed in about half of Japan gets covered by snow. It becomes impossible to see the markings. Yet another reason people drive more carefully in snow.
8. Cars Can Suddenly Stop Randomly Anywhere
Home delivery was a big thing in Japan long before epidemics and Amazon, and even though overnight deliveries have turned to two-day deliveries, the delivery trucks will stop at the side of the street, their hazard lights flashing while the driver runs up to the house with the package.
Or other deliveries, because it is not just packages any more, it is meal boxes and ingredients with recipes and cooking instructions, dry cleaning, Amazon and Mercari and Zozotown.
On narrow city streets, the deliveries can be significant obstacles, especially since they happen during rush hour – which also coincides with junior high school students going home, and houswives doing the last-minute dinner shopping.
But you can also get blocked by cars stopping randomly here and there, pulled off to whatever side of the road there may be. Usually, they are taking or making calls on their mobiles, since it is completely prohibited for a driver to use their mobile phone (handsfree, which can be found in many cars, is a grey zone).
9. The Ibaraki Maneuver
Turning to the right in Japanese traffic means turning across the oncoming traffic, and you have to pull up and wait until all the cars in the opposite lane have passed, or until the designated right turn arrow light turns green.
This can take time, especially when there is a lot of traffic coming from the opposite direction. When there is no special right turn light, there is a risk that only one or two of the waiting cars will be able to turn before the oncoming traffic stops them.
So it is no wonder that some impatient drivers gamble on their fast reactions and that other drivers will be slow and give them room, especially in wide intersections.
10. Tailgating Slow Drivers
Driving too slowly, especially if combined with driving erratically, is illegal in Japan. You are supposed to go with the flow and follow the rhythm, not decide the pace for the entire community.
Since honking your horn is reserved for dangerous actions from others, there are few ways a driver can express their dissatisfaction with the slowpoke they are stuck behind. The most common is to tailgate the too slow driver.
Normally, cars in Japan hold a reasonable distance between them, usually about 10-15 meters (three car lengths). But if someone constantly drives so close that you can see their face in your rear-view mirror, you are too slow in their opinion.
Did you find this useful? Then chances are that you will find my book “Driving In Japan” even more useful. You can read the table of contents here, and get the book right away here.
Japan Top 10 