Driving In Reverse
When I first found out my placement location would be Ibaraki I started getting excited, having a tangible location I could dream about living in. On the other hand, I found out I would also have to buy a car, something I rather dreaded. Driving anywhere new brings about a certain amount of anxiety, learning on the opposite side of the road though? Terrifying.
Before I left Vancouver, I often joked to my friends that I would have to learn how to drive backwards. That’s what it felt like in my mind, driving in the left lane, having the driver's seat on the right side of the car, everything was flipped. Turns out, I may not have been too far off the mark.
Driving here in Japan feels pretty similar to driving back home, just reversed. It took me a long time to get used to driving on the left side of the road. I was scared to drive anywhere at first, so I mostly went out later at night when I hoped traffic would be lighter. I had a bad habit of turning into the right lane when I made a right turn. I was fighting against every natural instinct I had developed driving back home.
Thankfully, having the driver's side on the right side of the car sort of helped in this regard. It just makes the whole experience feel different, and makes it easier to contextualize a different set of driving norms. When you sit on the right, you drive on the left, and make sure the center line stays on your right side.
What took a longer time to get used to, was having the window wipers and turn signals flipped. For whatever reason, this was the thing that surprised me the most. I knew the seat was on the right, and they drove on the left, but hadn’t even considered that the car controls would be flipped as well. I definitely surprised myself a few times when I went to flick on my turn signal and got wipers across my dashboard instead.
Lucky for me, none of my many mistakes caused any accidents or even close calls. I live in a small town, so while there’s a bit of rush hour traffic, for the most part it’s nowhere close to what I was used to in Surrey. I’ve certainly been scared while driving, but that’s largely because I think streets here in Japan are just far too narrow.
For the most part, streets here are only one lane in each direction, if they have lane markers at all. I’ve seen a few streets with two lanes each way, but those tend to be in larger cities or busier streets. One of my schools, which is about an hour drive, has single lane roads the whole way there. As someone used to being able to weave in and out of traffic when I was in a hurry, this was quite the adjustment.
If there’s a slow driver on the road, there’s very little you can do about it. It’s not uncommon to see a lineup of cars close together, only to spread out after the driver at the head of the pack turns. I’m constantly checking my mirror to make sure there isn’t a queue of cars forming behind me. You can risk going into oncoming traffic to try and pass very slow drivers, but there are often signs discouraging you from doing so.
On top of the single lanes, Japanese roads are also narrower than roads in the west. In America or Canada, the width of the lanes is around 12 ft or so. Here in Japan, the lanes are around 10 ft. About 2 less feet of room to work with. There’s not much of a shoulder available on most roads. If a car has to pull over and stop for whatever reason, there’s no way to go around them without veering into oncoming traffic.
Of course, cars aren’t the only things on the road. Back home bicycles were more of a rarity, here they’re far more common. Though, often you’ll see cyclists riding their bike on the sidewalks, which would be considered rather improper back home. I can’t say I blame them though. The few times I’ve taken my bike out, I’ve been alarmed at the small bike lanes, and how close you feel to the cars. Often the bike lanes are faded too, making it more difficult for both cyclists and drivers to know where you’re supposed to be.
While driving to work some mornings, you’ll often see cars driving slowly behind a cyclist, watching for an opportunity to weave into the oncoming lane in order to pass them. It’s often unsafe for cyclists and cars to drive side by side, and there’s a lot more consideration that needs to happen to make sure everyone stays safe on the roads.
Thankfully, the car I ended up leasing is what’s called a Kei car. These are the smallest class of cars available here in Japan, with less engine power as well. It’s not dissimilar to a smart car back home, or any of those compact cube like models you might see. It feels a bit like a toy car at times with the reduced engine and small size, but it makes both parking and maneuvering these narrow roads much easier.
Speaking of parking, street parking here in Japan is essentially non-existent. If you plan to drive somewhere, you better hope your destination has parking, otherwise you’ll have to seek out and pay for parking at a parking lot. Given how narrow the roads are, there just isn’t room for people to park wherever they want like back home.
To make parking more complicated, at least for this foreigner, is that people in Japan almost always reverse into their parking stalls. As someone who avoided reverse stall parking whenever possible, this was not my favorite thing to find out. After some research, I found out it’s not an official rule, but an unspoken one, and something taught to people as they learn to drive here in Japan.
There’s a few reasons for it. Like I mentioned, space here is tight, so being able to drive forward when leaving a spot makes it easier to maneuver. You can also see oncoming traffic, or other cars around you more easily. They say around 20% of accidents happen in parking lots, and with narrower spaces, anything you can do to make it safer for the driver and the pedestrians is good. For pedestrians, because the norm is that everyone reverse-stall parks, they aren’t on the lookout for cars backing out of parking spots.
Now, back home, when a car starts in a parking lot, you assume the driver will be departing shortly, and so you’re more cautious or try to get out of the way. That assumption doesn’t seem to be as, well, assumed here in Japan. It’s not uncommon for people to sit idling in their cars for a longer period of time than I saw back home. I’ve seen plenty of people with their seats reclined, fast asleep, while their engine is still running.
I can understand wanting to stay warm, or you’re in the middle of some TV program you’re watching on your navigation screen, but it feels wasteful at times. Perhaps this is more of a personal values difference than a cultural one, but unless it was the dead of winter and I genuinely needed my car to warm up in order to drive safely, if my car was on I was either driving or about to drive.
If I’m sitting idle somewhere, I turn off the engine. It’s a waste of gas, bad for the environment, and typically just unnecessary. Aside from the environment, it’s not hurting anyone I suppose. It does make for a weird precedent though where pedestrians hear a running car and don’t assume they should get out of the way or be cautious. It hasn’t caused me any problems yet, but does shift the responsibility onto the drivers to be more aware than the pedestrians.
Aside from these minor changes, like those mentioned above, no left turns on a red light, and Japanese people’s instance that the green light is actually blue, driving here is basically the same as back home. After just a few months I’ve gotten fairly comfortable with driving here. My initial trepidation has mostly dissipated, and at times I even enjoy driving around.
I like it for similar reasons as back home, it’s a good chance to sing loudly, or catch up on a podcast. The sweet spot for me is around 30 minutes, as any longer than that and I start to check out. The scenery around my small town is pretty nice, and I look forward to seeing it in the summer as I putt around.
Driving here wasn’t as scary as I feared it would be, even if it did take some time to adjust to driving on the other side of the road. Now it’s become somewhat natural to me, though I still look at other cars just to double check that I’m in the correct lane or following directions properly.
I got an international driver's license before I left Canada so I could drive here, but that’s only valid until May. At some point I’ll have to get a Japanese drivers license to continue using my car. For once, I’m grateful for Canada’s somewhat annoying licensing process, since Japan recognizes it as being stringent enough that I don’t have to take any further tests to get a Japanese license.
Assuming nothing changes, knock on wood, driving has just become a part of daily life that I don’t think about all too often. When I need to do it, I let muscle memory take over, and just do what I’ve always done. It may be reversed, and with some small differences, but it’s just driving.
