Red light, green light?

The streets of Kyoto are not safe.  They are not safe at all    I have witnessed things that would cause the sanest and most controlled of us in the US to begin screaming obscenities and shake our fists.  I know this for a fact because I have been hit by a car, not once but twice, and by bikes countless times.

Drivers breaking traffic laws, people riding bikes while ‘multitasking’, erratic behavior from pedestrians, I’ve seen it all.  After five years you would think I would have gotten used to it, grown a thick skin, stopped caring, but no.  Every time I see it happen I have to shake my head and wonder why there are so few traffic deaths in this country.  How can people go about so blithely without getting into accidents every day?  Nowadays, unless it is me having the near death experience I don’t get angry anymore, so my blood pressure doesn’t rise and I don’t get premature grey hair.

My favorite is red lights.  Here in Kyoto red lights are apparently optional.  You would think it is a rare thing to see someone run a red light, like it is in the US, but I’m sorry to say you are mistaken.  Here it is an art.  People continue to ‘flow’ with traffic until the last possible minute, nope, wait, second, rushing through not a stale green, not a yellow, but a full red light.  As long as the cross traffic hasn’t started they keep going.  During rush hour it isn’t just one, two or three but entire lines of vehicles from cars to full sized cargo trucks.  Some might be able to explain it away as an expression of Japans well known ‘group think’ culture but that just doesn’t sit right.

On the other hand there are the bicyclists.  They pay about as much attention to their surroundings as the drivers do.  More often than not you will see them focused on their cell phones furiously tapping out an email as they speed down the sidewalk, forgoing the use of conveniently placed hand-bells in lieu of pedestrians amazing psychic sensing abilities.  I myself enjoy the rainy day special, an old man smoking a cigarette while holding an umbrella slowly zigzagging down the road at a slower then walking pace but I think the record for ‘multitasking’ goes to a middle aged salary man I witnessed a while back that managed to smoke a cigarette, hold an umbrella, and type an email on his cell phone all while riding his bike down a busy road in the rain.

I won’t even get into pedestrians.  They are just too easy.

Don’t get me wrong.  Not everyone is like what I’ve mentioned above.  In fact a good number of citizens here are perfectly aware of what is going on, follow the rules, and respect their fellow travelers.  It is the rest that I would like to give a thrashing to.  The ones who make the roads and sidewalks of this city dangerous to be on.  The ones who endanger the lives and well beings of people around them.  The ones who apparently just don’t care about the rest of the world.

Living here has put an edge on my senses.  I walk down the road and I make sure to look both ways before crossing, twice.  One cracked rib (in which the culprit drove off without giving me his insurance information) was enough to open my eyes.  Even if there are rules that doesn’t mean everyone will follow them.

Only in Japan?