Japanese Cars

Japan is not a land of cars. This is probably due to most of their space being occupied by other non-car things. As such is is prohibitively expensive and people are much more likely to take a train to get anywhere. However, out in the suburbia (which in Japan simply means there is at least 1 tree for every 3 blocks) they are slightly more common as people may have places to go where the trains do not directly serve.

The Japanese cars you see in America aren't really Japanese at all. The first thing one notices when looking at a real Japanese car is that they are incredibly boxy. Perhaps this is simply an under-handed business dealing with the gas companies to reduce gas mileage, or perhaps deep within the underground chamber of the Mitsubishi Motor company there is an alter with a plate-gold Scion XB and burning incense. They are also very small which is to be expected. You find sports cars every now and then, usually owned by what would be college students spending their tuition on a car that will never be able to exceed 40 MPH on the crowded, narrow streets and pay some $6.5 a for a gallon of gas. Note that a while home parking space is rare, a garage is practically unheard of. Seems like a lot of money just to blue-ball one's self.

Despite having rigorous driving tests it is pretty obvious that they don't drive all that often. While they diligently stopping in front of crosswalks they will constantly take turns at high speed around blind corners which probably results in more than a few human okonomiyakis every year. In more urban areas it is impossible to make a turn at all, while given the right away at the light you need to contend with an infinite steam of pedestrians. The procedure is to awkwardly turn into the crosswalk forcing the pedestrians to go around you and finally go once the light is red and the pedestrian light ends. You have to wonder why they chose to drive at all.

The worst people are of course the motorcyclers. Like the US they like to make the exhaust system as loud as possible, unlike the US the streets are packed with tall buildings that will reverberate and deafen anyone on the block. To make matters worse in some sort of bizzaro-world twist they like to put large subs on their bikes. So you get a twin dose of aural rape with a an exhaust system system that sounds like a jet engine blasting over a heavy ground shaking bass of some pseudo-English Japanese rap. But if this was an attempt to be cool you'd at least think they'd get a bike that didn't look so damn ugly. Again although you might see Japanese branded bikes in the US that's not what the Japanese own. Instead of small crotch-rockets their bikes they are these long, fat bikes that look like big mopeds kinda like a Harley Davidson had sex with a vespa and gave birth to a baby with Down's Syndrome. the riders wear old fashion motorcycle helmets and goggles making the whole thing a gigantic explosion of douche-dom.

The second most annoying people are the giant moving billboards. Regular "Semi" trucks in Japan are small, basically a tiny cab with a huge back storage area yet still smaller than your average SUV. Moving billboards on the other hand do not transport anything and yet are the size of actual trailer trucks. Instead they contain large speakers and will blast out loud music into the street to advertise a new song album because the best way to get people to buy music is to make sure they can't hear. Though not nearly as bad are the political wagons. These are usually a minivan with a loud speaker where they basically shout propaganda at the the public. Again all this is an ironic twist in that the Japanese love their peace and quiet and to be loud is to be rude. They will text back and forth on the trains to avoid talking but there's surprisingly nothing stopping them from yelling at people from a car with a loud speaker. There's certainly some priorities that need to be straitened out.