Have you ever seen this emoji: 🔰? It’s in every phone and plenty of social media sights, so you’ve probably at least scrolled past it before. Despite how prevalent it is on our favorite platforms, it’s a fairly obscure symbol. Unless you’ve spent significant time in Japan, it’s very possible you have no idea what it is. It is actually a sticker used to designate new drivers in Japan. It’s required for every beginner to have one on their car until they have at least one year of experience driving in Japan. I was able to finally remove my sticker (magnet) from the back of my Subaru not too long ago, as I’ve officially been driving in Japan for over a year now.
With that milestone achieved, I figure now is as good a time as any to reflect on my Okinawan driving experience. There are tons of interesting observations I’ve made with regard to driving in Japan over the past 14 months. A few of them are simply Japanese road-safety facts, but many are just things I’ve noticed while immersed in driving around Japan.
For context, I live on Okinawa and got my Japanese license through SOFA with the military. All of these observations are from the lens of an American driving in Japan. For the past year, I’ve primarily driven all around Okinawa. While I have driven from Kumamoto to Hiroshima on a trip in May 2021, the majority of my experiences and observations come from driving around in Japan’s southern-most prefecture.
So let’s jump into the top ten things I’ve learned about driving in Japan!
- Reverse Parking
It only took a few trips out and about to quickly realize that 98 times out of 100, Japanese drivers will back into their parking spaces. As culture shocks go, this one is pretty tame; however, this definitely differs from my experience in America. That said, over the last year my wife and I have been backing up into spaces more often than not, in our humble attempt to fit in. Our two cars are both built in 2008, so we’ve had to forego the help of a backup camera and rely on our mirrors. Although it took a bit of practice, we’re now a lot better at backing up and parking in general.
At first I didn’t really understand the reasoning for why they always back in to park. However, after doing a little research and thinking about it, the reasoning is actually very straightforward.
Parking spaces are pretty tight in Japan, and backing in makes everything safer. It is much easier to leave a parking space pulling forward than trying to back out. Regardless of when, you will have to either back in or back out of a space when parking, or when leaving, and it’s safer to back in while parking, avoiding stationary cars, than it is to back out when leaving and not hit oncoming traffic or pedestrians walking behind you.
Plus, backing out can be extra tricky with the tight parking spaces considering different cars can be parked around you when leaving compared to when you arrived, throwing off your perception and expected path. Doing the hard work first pays off in the long run.
- Yellow light means floor it.
With the amount of consideration and rule-following this culture is known for, you’d think that when the light turns to yellow, people would immediately slow down and cautiously come to a stop. You are free to think that, but it is not what happens in Okinawa. Once the light turns to yellow, it is pedal to the floor as drivers try to beat the red light.
I tried doing some research on this, but it appears not everyone thinks this is true and instead suggest the opposite, so maybe it is just an Okinawa thing. My wife’s and my theory is that this might be because Japan doesn’t have a “turn-on-red” rule and it’s understood by drivers that they will be stuck if they miss the light. However, as I said before, this is only an observation and a theory.
Regardless, this is one I try not to emulate as some people can be pretty crazy when attempting to beat the light. Some people just end up blowing red lights while trying to beat the yellow, which is a habit I definitely don’t want to start.
- Cars stop way farther apart at lights.
It’s common in America to stop a few feet behind the next car when you come up to a red light within a line of cars. As you’re waiting for the light to change, it’s not unusual to inch up a little closer as everyone else behind you does the same.
In Japan, people stay far apart. One of the first things I noticed was how much closer I was to the car in front of me compared to all the drivers around me. As I would look around more and more I would notice some people were giving as much as an entire car’s length of space or more between cars when stopped at a light. Plus, it seemed much rarer for Japanese drivers to inch forward at all compared to what I was used to.
This one really made me stop and think that the Japanese way was a lot safer. For example, if you get rear-ended you’re less likely to chain rear end the person in front of you. I really like that added buffer, so I have adopted this habit and try to leave more space between cars than I used to.
- Very narrow two way roads
According to the website World Population Review, Japan is ranked 36 out of 232 countries and territories for population density. A dense population causes pretty much everything to be a little more compact, including cars and roads. Many roads are super narrow, but especially ones that snake in-between buildings. This isn’t unexpected in some respects, but what catches me off guard is that they are almost never one way streets. This means that if another car comes, you either have do some awkward maneuvering to the side to let them pass. Or in the worst cases, someone will have to back up the lane to allow the other to pass.
While my experience is mainly in the towns across Okinawa, I know that narrow roads are actually really common in rural areas of Japan. Some of these roads can be very narrow and quite long; even having bends where you can’t see if someone is coming the other way. At least for Okinawa, the good news is that mirrors are very prevalent along the road to help see around corners and prevent collisions along the more narrow paths.
- Blinkers mean you can park anywhere
This one may just be a product of the aforementioned narrow roads, but regardless, people use their blinkers to park just about anywhere. If you are driving down the road in the middle of town, don’t get distracted for a second because you never know if someone just stopped halfway in the middle of your lane with their blinkers on.
The problem is that many of the roads don’t have space for street parking, so when someone needs to stop in a shop quickly they will just throw on their blinkers and get over as far as they can. However, as far as they can sometimes means they are still half way in the left lane.
- Speed limits are slow
We moved to Japan from Texas and the difference between speed limits is laughable. On the highways in Texas we’d frequently drive on roads with a speed limit of 80 mph (~129 km/h), while driving in Japan I don’t think we’ve gone faster than 80 km/h (50 mph) more than a handful of times. The average speed for us driving around town is between 30 – 50 km/h (18 – 31 mph). Even expressways aren’t that fast at around 100 km/h (62 mph) for regular cars and 80 km/h (50 mph) for Kei cars.
At his point though, I’m used to it and it doesn’t really feel slow anymore. Also it’s notably safer if we, or anyone else, gets in a crash while going so much slower… Texas roads felt pretty scary when we were going 80 mph and people still would pass you while flying down the road at 90+ mph.
- Small children don’t always stay in their seat
This one is harder to notice at first and it wasn’t until I saw it a few times did I start to pay attention and look for it. Now that I check, I constantly see kids around 2 – 6 in age not buckled in at all, and moving freely around the back of the car.
Looking into it, apparently there wasn’t a mandatory seat belt law for back seat passengers in Japan until 2008. This article is from 2013, but Japan Today cites a survey where only 68.2% of people in the back seat wear a seat belt versus 99.4% of drivers.
They also list the five best and five worst prefectures in Japan for backseat seatbelt use. Shockingly, Okinawa is the worst with only 32.4% of backseat passengers buckling their seatbelt. I guess it’s a good thing the speed limits are so much slower here because that just seems unnecessarily unsafe for such a risk-averse country.
- Expressway is very express, but not nearly as scenic
I know I just said that expressways (toll roads) were not that fast at 100 km/h, but when compared to driving in Japan without taking the expressway, they quickly feel like hyper speed. We never take the expressway on Okinawa because it saves on average 25 minutes for a 2 hour trip and the scenery up the coast is top tier, so we really don’t mind… HOWEVER, the expressway makes a big difference on the mainland over longer distances.
When we were planning our drive from Kumamoto to Hiroshima, we noticed just how much a difference the expressway can make. Trains and other forms of public transportation were off limits to Kadena military members at the time because of, what else, COVID-19, so we elected to rent a car. Comparing the time it takes to drive using the expressway versus not, makes expressways pretty worth it. We were able to complete our journey in 4 hours 45 minutes with the expressway, and it would have easily taken 8+ hours without it.
The time save is pretty big, but there are two downsides. One is money, as it cost around $60 one-way on tolls. The other downside is missing out on the scenery. You get lots of beautiful mountains and forests and occasionally some rural homes in the distance, but you don’t get to see much of the cities and towns as you pass through. When we came to a town or city, there would big long strips of anti-vibration opaque plastic fencing that would block our view. The barriers were great for lowering the noise of highway traffic into the city, but it was unfortunate not being able to see the majority of the places we passed.
- Y / A Plates
In Japan, license plates have one hiragana on the left-hand side. The hiragana are mostly selected at random, and a few symbols are disallowed, such as し (shi) since it’s a homophone for “death”. Japanese license plates also contain a place name, a classification number, and the 4 digit license number. One of the first things we noticed when driving around a U.S. Installation such as Kadena Air Base was that many cars did not have the one hiragana on the left side.
Instead, all of the military cars have either a ‘Y’ or an ‘A’. Specially, ‘Y’/’A’ plates are for vehicles owned by people with SOFA licenses, which is the Status of Forces Agreement that Japan has with the United States Military. ‘Y’ are for regular cars and ‘A’ are for Kei cars. This makes spotting a military car, i.e. a foreigner’s car, really easy; especially in Okinawa where most foreigners are going to be in the military any way, whereas, on the mainland that isn’t necessarily the case.
- Kei cars make a lot more sense here than in America
In America, smaller cars with tiny engines with barely enough power to make it up a steep hill simply don’t make a lot of sense. I really didn’t understand why anyone would choose to drive these tiny, boxy, underpowered cars everywhere. However, after just a few months in Japan and owning one of those tiny little Kei cars, it makes a lot more sense. Speed limits are notably slower, and you don’t often need to travel large distances in Japan, where it’s often the exact opposite case in the U.S. But in Japan, there really is no need for huge cars. Even the trucks, almost exclusively used by workers in Japan, are much smaller and more compact.
Kei cars are convenient in so many ways. Because they are smaller, parking and maneuvering through narrow streets is so much easier. We have a Subaru Legacy hatchback and an adorably tiny Suzuki Lapin. The Legacy isn’t that wide for a normal American car, but the Lapin is just so much easier to squeeze through narrow Okinawan streets. Plus, there are exclusive Kei car parking spots that aren’t deep enough to fit a normal car.
Another reason Kei cars make more sense here is that Japan has cheaper taxes for Kei cars versus regular cars. This is because Kei cars are lighter and therefore don’t wear down the roads as much. You can save a lot of money on both insurance and the yearly road tax by buying a Kei car. Additionally, our Lapin gets much better gas mileage, which saves us even more money.
So while the tiny, boxy, underpowered Kei cars seem silly at first glance, they make a lot of sense to own in Japan.
