When it gets dark in Japan, it gets pitch dark. If you have ever seen pitch (derived from tar), you would know that it is not only black, it is a kind of matte black that seems to absorb light. Just like the Japanese night.
Japan is further south than you may think (Hokkaido is at the same latitude as Milan, Tokyo the same as Sicily. Okinawa is as far south as Hawaii, or the Sahara desert). The days are several hours longer in summer than winter, even if there is no white nordic light.
But that means winter is much darker than summer, except for the northern third of the country which has snow – sometimes plenty, like 2023 when there were days with more than 80 cm per day and 4 meters of snow in the Aomori ski slopes – before Christmas.
Even in summer, driving in Japan can have its perils at night. Japan is different from all other countries when it comes to driving, so here are some tips to make the night journey smoother.
1. Watch Out For Pedestrians
One of the scariest things that can happen to you is encountering a pedestrian at night. All dressed in black at an unlit street where the sidewalk consists of a painted line 20 cm to the side of the houses.
Pedestrians in Japan have not discovered reflectors, even though they are well promoted, the police give them away at events, and dogs wear them in their collars like veritable garlands. If you are lucky, the pedestrians may be holding a flashlight; if you are unlucky, they will shine it in your eyes.
That they wear dark clothes makes pedestrians nearly impossible to discover, but they become even more difficult to discover when they walk on the side of a dark road with no lights behind them. And it becomes downright dangerous when they can not walk straight. Walking home when drunk is quite common and yet another reason to be careful in residential areas.
2. Watch Out For Wild And Semi-Wild Animals
There are no stray dogs in Japan, but cats like anywhere go wherever they like. They are nocturnal, so you will often see them at night, rushing to cross the road, or stopping to try and figure out what kind of animal has such bright eyes. Until it hears the engine.
Cats are properties of someone, so they are another reason (apart from pedestrians) to take it slowly in residential areas. But another, maybe more surprising, is wild animals.
If there is a forest nearby, there is a chance that there will be foxes and Japanese badgers (tanuki) or Japanese raccoons visiting at night, especially in areas where there is a lot of snow and people compost their garden garbage. Nobody owns them but you do not want to run over one anyway.
In even more forested areas, there is a chance that you may see even bigger wild animals – deer, monkeys, wild boar, and bears. They usually get out of the way quickly, except deer who may be hypnotized by your headlights, wild boar who do not care and even may attack a car, and bears who just want to get something to eat during feeding season in fall, and guard their cubs in spring.
3. The Headlights Let You See Around Corners Without Mirrors
The mirrors at intersection help you see across the road by day, but paradoxically they are even more useful at night.
In daytime, oncoming traffic can be hard to see, especially during dusk and dawn, and when weather conditions make the mirrors fog up. It is also sometimes hard to judge the speed and distance of cars in mirrors.
It is much easier at night. The headlights of the cars make their position clearly visible, and the speed easy to gauge. And you can see the light before the car itself becomes visible, which makes it easy to see that a car is coming. Even without mirrors.
4. Distances Become Harder To Judge
In darkness, distances become harder to judge. Especially when objects suddenly appear. Cars may be easier than things like animals, bicycles and pedestrians, who can appear suddenly without your brain being able to adjust.
This is yet another reason to drive slowly, so your brain has time to judge the distance to appearing objects. As this becomes harder if your eyes are not adjusted to the darkness, starting out even more slowly will help.
5. Bicycles Sometimes Have Lights
After walking, the second most common way for people in Japan to transport themselves is to ride bicycles. In particular among the very old and young (who are too young to get a drivers license, something that requires you to be aged above 18).
As there is an informal curfew for young people (even up to high school), you will not see many children out after dark, unless accompanied by their parents. But for older people, there are no restrictions.
Old people – which in Japan typically can mean from 70 up to 100 – are surprisingly active and mobile. If they need a support to walk they will often stay at home after dark, but if they use a bicycle, they can move around quite a bit.
Formally, you are required to both wear a helmet and have functioning lights on your bicycle. The police often send out the fresh graduates from the police academy to make sure people do (you can get fined if you do not). But only for a few weeks after graduation in spring, until they receive their final placements.
The rest of the year, they hardly check, otherwise the old cyclists would all be rounded up and put in prison. You never see anyone over 40 wear a helmet (unless they have a racing bicycle and matcing wear from Tour de France).
Worse, those old people do not necessarily have proper lights on their bicycles either. While you can be blinded by bicycle lights (more about that later), a bicycle without lights (and sometimes also without reflectors) is extremely difficult to see. If the cyclist is less than steady, for instance because they are on their way home from the bar, they are even more dangerous. Sometimes they will fall over by themselves, that is how steady they are.
6. Adapt Your Driving Speed
When it is dark, you can not see as far as when it is light outside. The reaction distance is the same before you hit the brakes. The braking distance and the reaction distance are the same as when you are driving at the same speed in daylight. But at night the visibility is lower, so you can not see as far.
Either you stretch out the road, or you slow down – which gives you more time to react. At night, you will not be able to see things coming from the houses and lanes on the side of the road as well as in daylight. That does not include children, who are usually inside after dark; but elderly and animals like cats are likely to pop out without warning.
7. It Gets Even Darker When It Rains
It can be extremely dark in Japan during the middle of the night, but it gets even darker when it rains. The clouds hide the stars and the moon (which usually provides some illumination), and the rain decreases the area streetlights can illuminate.
Even if some things get shinier and reflect light, they are typically dark as Japanese houses are. Roads and ground get even darker than in daylight. And the raindrops might fall so close that they almost form a wall of water, at least over a distance. Wipers wave to work hard but the flooded windshield is difficult to see through. The rain really makes it harder to see at night.
8. Avoid Getting Blinded
When you are out at night, especially where there are no street lights, your eyes adapt to the darkness. Young people and non-smokers have better night vision than older people, which is one reason Japanese seniors are so dangerous at night – apart from generally diminished vision and hearing.
But you do not have to be very old to lose your night vision, at least temporarily. It is enough for someone to shine a strong light into your eyes. Like a police-grade flashlight. Or headlights from another car. Or a bicycle light.
Other cars usually behave and go to half beam in built-up areas. The risk is low that you get blinded by them. Pedestrians swinging their flashlights back and forth are a much bigger risk factor. but the bicycle lights are the worst.
Hang on a bit. Bicycle lights are mounted in front of the front wheel, right? And powered by the generator spinning off the wheel, right?
Not any more. Bicycle lights in Japan are battery-powered LED lights, which give a much stronger (and more focused) beam of light than the old model. Almost like a police-grade flashlight.
On top of that, they are mounted on the basket that sits in front of the handlebars. This brings them up 40-50 cm, just the right height to shine into the eyes of a motorist. Perfect for blinding oncoming drivers.
It does not end there, however. In addition to the strong beams, many bicycle lights have stroboscoping mode. Flashing very fast. Exactly the thing that might give you an epileptic stroke. After you get blinded, that is.
9. Make Sure You See The Stop Signs
Stop signs on Japanese streets can be hard to see in daylight (sometimes they sit on poles reaching up to the second floor). They may be easy to see from down the street, but when you are on top of (or under) them, you can not see them.
The markings on the street, especially on small streets in residential areas, are also not as prominent as when the street leads to a bigger road. When there is snow, you can forget those markings. They may not be easily visible at night either.
10. Mirrors Can Be Treacherous
The mirrors hanging over intersections make driving in Japan much easier, especially at night. But they have a trap built in.
When a car is approaching in the right lane of the road you are planning to turn into, it becomes invisible when it comes too close. Of course you can still see it if you bend forward and look a little sideways – but the convenience of seeing it in the mirror is gone.
So always look at the road, if there are oncoming cars. You can see their headlights, even if you can not see them in the mirror.
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.
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