We had a Japanese exchange student, and she Japanese drivers are nuts.
I was driving up Page Mill Road in Palo Alto a few weeks back headed to Russian Ridge for a hike. About 2/3 of the way up the mountain, I came upon a “parked” car with the driver’s door open taking up about half of my narrow lane. Sure enough, there were three Japanese visitors on the hillock besides the road looking at the sights. I stopped to see if everything was OK and, in very rough English, the gentleman asked how to get to Russian Ridge. I told them straight ahead another two miles and they couldn’t miss it. He said “OK, I follow you” and I said no, not a good idea. His woman friend or wife then proceeded to open the door of my car and get in! It took me a lot of “No, no, no” to get her to rejoin her party in his car.
They did follow me up the mountain and pulled into an earlier parking lot at Montebello Open Space. Not long after, they pulled into the Russian Ridge parking lot another mile down the road.
Your exchange student is right. They are nuts. And they sure don’t study up on America before visiting. Of course, the same goes for me for my 3 or 4 trips to Japan. But at least I DO understand the universal signal of red lights on a squad car.
Japan is one of the top 10 safest countries in the world in which to drive . USA is not in the top 10 . http://www.seriousrankings.com/top-10-safest-countries-to-drive-your-car/
We had a Japanese exchange student, and she Japanese drivers are nuts
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My first trip to Japan was in 1957 and we got the indoctrination which included - robbery not a very good idea as their jails aren’t fun and may be as bad as trying to get out of jail in Tijuana.
While told probably absolutely no chance the greater majority of us would drive that the taxi’s were cheap and plentiful.
After they mentioned the narrow streets we were told
“Be careful of the taxis most of the drivers were Kamikaze pilot washouts and they still think they are invincible”.
That was true...take the horn away from them and I believe they were lost.
Funny, the longer into the Liberty, the better the drivers were and it became ‘exciting’...
Guess one of the ‘good mixes of 17 year olds and booze’....