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To any motorist in Japan, regardless of whether that motorist is driving a moped, motorcycle, car, truck, bus, or even train, nothing strikes fear into the heart like the sight of a bicyclist.

Bicyclists in Japan are the absolute epitome of poor “traffic citizens”. When they’re on the sidewalk, they weave in and out of pedestrians; they ride while texting, smoking, and holding umbrellas; and they mount/dismount moving bicycles, much less skillfully than they believe, causing general mayhem.

But actually, it’s cyclists’ behaviour on the road, where they’re supposed to be, that is even more terrifying. They ignore traffic lights without paying the slightest bit of attention to whether a car might be coming; if it’s inconvenient to cross to the other side of the road, they’ll gladly just drive on the wrong side; they’ll unpredictably switch between the street, the sidewalk, and the pedestrian crossings… Really, how there aren’t more bicycle-caused traffic accidents is beyond me.

(At this point, I’ll point out that the real spokeheads aren’t the problem.. Anybody here who has an actual decent bicycle and some riding gear generally are good traffic citizens. It’s the 95% of people, the ones who ride the disposable 3-speed rustmobiles, that are the real problem.)

A couple months ago, I actually witnessed a bicyclist whose immunity had apparently run out. Examining the following intersection (the intersection of Yamate-dori and Shin-Mejiro-dori, for those familiar with Tokyo):

I was at the position of the car marked “D”, waiting to turn right. There was a truck behind me, where “T” on the picture is. Now, when you’re turning right at that intersection (as I was and the truck was), your attention is focused on where the green circles are. Basically you’re looking there for mopeds who are legally coming straight through the intersection (nobody besides mopeds can do this). To a lesser extent, you are also checking for pedestrians on the zebra crossing, though pedestrians are slow and predictable and generally not a problem.

But as I was turning the corner, I happened to notice bicyclist B. You notice that she was going down the street the wrong way, went up the access ramp the wrong way, and then switched over to the pedestrian crossing. I saw her from the corner of my eye, and thought to myself, “If that truck behind me doesn’t see her, then there’s gonna be some trouble”. I checked it out in my rearview mirror, and sure enough, the truck hit the cyclist square-on.

So, I U-turned onto the sidewalk and rode back to the intersection and called 119 for an ambulance (a first for me) while the truck driver tended to the cyclist. There was a lot of blood, and she’d probably broken her leg or something, but it seemed like she was going to be fine.

Sadly, though, although the cyclist was clearly being riding stupidly and illegally, I still do have to give some of the blame to the truck. Anybody who’s driven in Japan even for one day knows to be super-vigilant of cyclists. That said: cyclists, whoever is in the right or the wrong, you will lose in an accident with a truck. So, come on.. get some common sense.

Justice Minister Hatoyama issued a press release on Friday stating that three death-row inmates had had their sentences “finalized” that morning.

Of course, this is a euphemism. To have your sentence finalized means… well, that you get killed by the state, to put it bluntly. Now, my own feelings about the death penalty aside, even its most dedicated proponents could not support the way that it’s carried out in Japan.

First of all, the method itself is hanging. Not “drop you a long way and snap your neck and you’re unconscious within a second” hanging, but “leave you in unimaginable pain as you slowly suffocate over 15 minutes” hanging. Once in a while, when that doesn’t work out so well, it’s “cut you down and have the guard do some Judo choke holds on you” hanging. At least once, it has been a “better not let the family have the body back, there is too much evidence of a botched job” hanging.  Hangings were conducted in 10 countries in 2007: Bangladesh, Botswana, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Singapore, Sudan and Syria.  Japan is the only of these that is considered to be a developed country.

The real cruelty, however, does not lie in the method of execution, or in this final agonizing 15 minutes. It’s that for 7 or 8 years, prisoners are kept in death row, never informed of the date of their execution until the day itself. Every day, they must live in a half-alive, half-dead state, never knowing if the footsteps they hear coming down the hallway each morning will herald their final day to live. If the prison officials stop by their cell one morning, the final moments of life have arrived. If not, this only signifies a 24-hour extension of life — who knows what will happen tomorrow? This means that prisoners are never given a chance to say final goodbyes to family members, never a chance to put things in order. The Justice Ministry explains that this is to lessen mental anguish and torture to inmates, who might start having problems when they know that their execution date is approaching, but psychologists argue that not knowing is even worse.

Family members, as well, are only notified once the sentence has been carried out. In one tragic story, a mother came one morning for her weekly visit with her son on Death Row. She was told by prison officials that her son was busy, and that she should come back in the afternoon. When she came back, she was informed that her son had been executed that morning, and that she should collect the body.

Hangings are usually carried out on a Friday, to limit public discourse in the media, and are almost always carried out when Parliament is not in session, to prevent questioning and debate from opposition. Most surveys still do show that Japan is overwhelmingly supportive of capital punishment, but one wonders how that might change if the general public were more aware of the way that it’s carried out here…

Woke up this morning to a rare treat, an actual ground cover of snow! It was so unusual for Tokyo that I had to take some pictures while doing my walk from Nakamurabashi to Fujimidai to get my traditionl weekend-morning coffee and muffin.

My moped, which I had parked right outside my building because I was doing some pre-sale maintenance, had a generous helping of snow.

Some poor guy doing deliveries on his moped for the local drug store. Doesn’t really look like a very fun day to be riding.

The show is so wet and slushy that this guy might have been driving for miles and miles and still have this mountain of snow on top of the car.

As a Canadian, I still find it bizarre to see Japanese people carrying umbrellas when it snows. It makes sense, I guess — snow is, after all, just frozen rain — but I can not bring myself to do it. I wonder if the people who live in parts of Japan where it snows often carry umbrellas when it snows.

Japanese snowmen have only 2 balls. Somebody explained to me that the “model” for snowmen here is some religious guy who is always kneeling, not standing like North American snowmen. Note the snowman in the background is shaped like an Oni, to celebrate Bean-Throwing Day.

Getting the forts ready for battle. Note that it’s only adults who feel the need to carry umbrellas — kids out for a bit of a play in the snow with the other neighbourhood children know perfectly well that a bit of snow never hurt anyone.

Ah, snow chains. The perfect driving accessory for a day with a little bit of slush on the road. Well, now I know why the roads here are forever being resurfaced…

When all you have is a broom, everything looks like a dusty floor.

Because this is Japan, passing the riding test is not the final step in getting a motorcycle license. As many disappointed license hopefuls will find out, when you finally hear those magic words “congratulations, you’ve passed”, you’re still not quite there; there are still two steps left. The final step is exactly as you would assume happens in any country around the globe: You have to go through a bit of paperwork to actually get a new license certificate with a Motorcycle endorsement on it. The penultimate step, however, is Pure Japan (TM): You have to go to motorcycle school after you have passed your motorcycle test.

The School

In Tokyo, at least, the motorcycle school is 3 hours, and the police contract it out to local riding schools (who actually give out most of the licenses in Japan — very few people get their licenses by taking their test from the police). After passing your test, you are presented with a list of riding schools. Pick one near you and the police give you a coupon for the 3-hour riding school there. The school that I chose, for its proximity to my house, separates the school into 3 50-minute segments.

Segment 1: Motorcycle Simulator

The company that makes this simulator would actually have a pretty good side business going if they decided to make controllers for arcade games. The three of us plus the instructor rode on a very realistic motorcycle through a very unrealistic town — the most peril-fraught town in existence, with cars, bicyclists, and pedestrians doing the most idiotic things imaginable. It was really no wonder that every third vehicle in this town seemed to be a speeding ambulance! The simulation actually seemed to be designed to make you have accidents. When I pulled up behind a bus, the instructor said “Just go around”. “No; if I go around, someone is going to step out from behind the bus and I’m going to hit them.” “Just do it.” [vrooom] “Oh. look at that, someone stepped out from behind the bus and I hit them.” “See, that’s why you shouldn’t pass stopped buses.”

The instructor himself demonstrated that it was not possible to get through the simulation without at least one accident. He rode through that town like a pro, expertly dodging seemingly-blind cyclists, ball-chasing children running into the streets, etc., until a car appeared out of nowhere and wiped him out. When we put it in super-slow-motion replay, we found that the car had been in a park, hiding behind some trees ready to start moving when it saw him.

Segment 2: The videos

This was 50 minutes of driving license instructional videos, and they didn’t seem to care which ones they showed us, as long as they showed 50 minutes’ worth (There were 2 videos chosen at random, the second of which was unceremoniously stopped when the clock hit 3:30:00).

The videos were exactly as you would expect. Some guy comes on the screen: “Hi! I’m some aging retired soccer player! I helped lead Japan to victory in some soccer contest! Do you know, on the soccer pitch, there are rules and manners to be followed, and if I don’t follow them, I could get a yellow card, or even a red card! Well, do you know what else has rules and manners that you have to follow?” At this point, everyone in the room was giddy with anticipation. What could the mystery activity, filled with rules and manners, referred to in this driving license instructional video, be? Could it be checkers? Marriage? Luckily, he broke the suspense by reaching into his shirt pocket (from which he’d previously produced the yellow cards and red cards) and producing his driving license. “It’s having a driving license!” This only bothered me a bit, as there are actually almost no rules or manners associated with the simple act of having a driving license.

Segment 3: Riding

Ah, the fun part.  My two classmates were both seasoned riders who had to get their licenses because they’d finally been caught riding without a license.  With this in mind, the instructor pushed us pretty hard, and it was a challenging 50 minutes of riding.  Don’t get me wrong; I can easily ride for 50 minutes, but that is on the roads where you’re pretty much going straight most of the time.  This instructor probably didn’t want anybody to get bored, so we certainly were not going straight:  Letter-S, Crank Course, Number-8, Slalom, Balance Beam,  U-Turns, Letter-V, Slalom while going around a corner.  Then the same thing going the other direction.  Then the same thing with one hand.  All this while avoiding all of the cars and bike drivers that were just taking their first lessons.  Really fun, but really challenging.

Anyway.  This was on Thursday.  Friday morning I went and picked up my new license card, and now I am fully licensed.

For those who don’t read Japanese.. These are driving directions, one of which is “Make a U-Turn in front of the Setagaya Police Station”

Found this little gem on Japan Today:

CHIBA — Police on Wednesday arrested a man for making 512 false emergency calls to police in one day in December last year. Police believe the suspect has made more than 3,000 crank calls since last June.

Cool, I didn’t think that most Japanese folks were up to making crank calls; it is excellent to see someone revive this lost art. So, which was it? Was it “Is your takoyaki maker running? Well you’d better go catch it!”? Perhaps it was “Have you got Prince Akishino in a can? Well you’d better let him out!”. I hope it was my personal favourite: “‘Hello, is Hiroshi there?’ ‘Wrong Number [click]‘ ‘Hello, this is Hiroshi, any messages?’”.

I’m giddy with anticipation! Which timeless classic did our intrepid dialer use to confuse and amuse the police?

Mamoru Suzuki, 30, who is a part-time worker at a local agent for the Yomiuri newspaper in Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture, was charged with making 512 crank calls to police from 7 a.m. to 11:35 p.m. on Dec 2, shouting “Shut up” and then hanging up.

Ah yes, the old “Shut up!” gag. Pure comedy gold.

Note.. I’m writing this for the interest of friends and family who are curious about how stuff works in Japan, but also in the hopes of helping people out if they are searching for info about motorcycle licensing in Japan…

Almost 3 years ago, when I converted my Canadian driving license to a Japanese one, I was told that if I wanted to convert my Motorcycle endorsement at the same time, it would take longer and cost more cash. “Nah, don’t bother. When am I ever going to ride a motorcycle?”

Well, I suppose I should never say never. About a year and a half ago, I bought a little auto-shift scooter for zipping around Tokyo (legal on a car license), and when it went to the big bike yard in the sky, I bought a manual-shift moped to replace it. Between the two bikes, I have done over 13,000km in and around Tokyo, but I realized that I would like a bit more. After all, it would be nice to strap a tent, sleeping bag, and chair to the back of a bike, leave Tokyo on a sunny Friday afternoon, and just see where the weekend takes me. This would be.. well, problematic at best on my 50cc bike, so it was time to investigate getting licensed for a bigger bike.

License Categories
Japanese motorcycle licenses are divided into 4 categories:

• Moped (Gentsuki): Up to 50cc. Separate license or included in a car license. Speed limit 30 km/h, must stay in left-most lane, can not do a direct right turn at many intersections.
• Small Bike (Kogata): Up to 125cc. Speed limit 50 km/h.
• Medium Bike (Futsuu, formerly Chuugata): Up to 400cc. Up to 250cc does not require yearly inspections.
• Large Bike (Oogata): Anything over 400cc.

I decided to go for the Chuugata license.. Those bikes are big enough to get me out of the city, without being so big as to be prohibitively expensive to buy or operate. Not only that, but the exam is not nearly as rigorous as the Oogata exam.

Contents of the Exam
To use a martial arts analogy, the test has both kata (how you drive in general) and waza (specific techniques that you must demonstrate). For the mid-size bike test, the techniques are as follows:

• Balance Beam (Ipponbashi): A balance beam 15 meters long and 20 centimeters wide. You must stop less than 2 meters before getting on the balance beam (so you can’t take a run at it) and you must take more than 7 seconds to cross it (so you can’t just speed across). Falling off or putting your feet down fails the test.
• Slalom: 5 cones spaced 3 meters apart. Slalom through them in under 8 seconds. Touching a cone fails the test.
• Crank Course: Two sharp left turns followed by two sharp right turns. Touching a pylon fails the test.
• S-Curve: Left turn, right curve, left curve, left turn. Touching a pylon fails the test.
• Emergency Stop: Stop from 45 km/h (by law only 40 km/h but the way the test is set up necessitates 45 or even 50).
• Uphill Start: An uphill start on a 10-degree slope. This doesn’t sound like much but that bike feels really heavy.

As for the driving part, it’s just regular driving around their track, set up so they can see you change lanes, turn right and left, use a traffic light and stop signs, etc.

The procedure at Fuchuu
I went to Fuchu Driving License Test Centre.. The other choice for Tokyo residents is Samezu (near Shinagawa). Fuchu is more convenient to my apartment and my office so I went there. Anyway, the procedure is very simple and casual. Make sure that your test voucher has 4600 yen worth of stamps (purchased from the stamp counter on the 1st floor). Take the test voucher up to the driving examination room on the 2nd floor, trade it for a green paper that your examiner will write on. Take the green paper out to the bike track, write your name, address, and phone number on the back, hand it and your car license to the examiner. Sit around and wait until your turn. While the guy before you is being told why he failed, you get to take the bike for one lap around the perimeter of the course to get used to its handling. Come back to the starting gate, wait for the examiner to tell you you can go.

My specific test experiences

• Test 1: Fell off the ipponbashi. This was my only time having trouble with any of the techniques.
• Tests 2, 3, 4: My riding was not genki enough. It’s hard to describe genki; best that I can do is “the opposite of listless.” Basically they wanted me to accelerate harder, drive faster, and brake harder. Believe me, I have no problems accelerating or driving fast, as a look at my unfortunate Japan Traffic Violation History will confirm. But this test course is small, about 100 meters from one end to the other. And nothing in my nature or my driving training will let me roll out of a turn, see a red light 50 meters ahead, and accelerate for it. So it took a long time to psych myself up for driving fast in this artificial situation.
• Tests 5, 6, 7, 8: Got over the genki driving problem, failed here for a variety of reasons. “Incorrect turn/lane change procedure”, “Toe pointed too far out on gear shift”, “Used brakes after entering a curve”. A common theme here was also “wide left turns” (Japan is left-driving, so left turns are the tight ones).
• Tests 9 and 10: Had these in the bag, then got excited when I knew I’d passed and made stupid mistakes. For test 9, it was stopping with my right foot down (instead of the left) while parking; for test 10 it was forgetting my genki driving after passing the last challenge, the uphill start.
• Test 11: Finally passed!

Miscellaneous Advice

• People often say that you should expect to pass your bike test in 3-5 tries. Given the percentage of people that I saw passing at Fuchuu, I would say that I am right on par with my 11 tries, as less than 10% of people would pass on any given day. Keep this in mind when deciding to take the tests, rather than going to riding school (which will pass you upon graduation). All in all, this was still cheaper than riding school, but it took a lot of time. I was lucky to have an office that is not so far from the testing centre, an understanding boss, and a moped for getting me there and back more quickly than public transit.
• There is an official system of demerit points, etc., but at Fuchu this seems to not really be in use. You are either good enough to pass or not, where “good enough to pass” is defined as “not having made any mistakes.”
• In the same vein, officially you are supposed to be allowed to continue the test as long as you have not done anything classes as an automatic fail (hitting a pylon, putting your feet down on the balance beam, stalling, etc.). However, in reality, you will be stopped mid-test and told to return to the starting gate if the examiner sees no way that you will pass. The farther you get, the better you did.
• If you have never had a bike license in Japan before, you will not get your license right away upon passing the test. Rather, you will be given a list of several driving schools. Pick one in your area and you will get a coupon for a 3-hour class there. After you have taken that class you can go back and get your license.
• For foreigners: This whole process requires decent Japanese knowledge. If you are hopeless at Japanese, bring along a friend, or consider doing riding school (also available in English and other languages) instead.

Well, that’s it. Anybody who sees this and would like to ask anything in particular, feel free to email me or leave me a comment in this blog. I can’t claim to be an expert, but I have now seen a great number of riding tests so maybe I can help explain something…

From Japan Today:

TOKYO — The average retail price of regular gasoline in Japan came to 154.30 yen per liter as of Monday, down 0.70 yen from two weeks earlier, the Oil Information Center said Wednesday.

So, nobody said a darned thing when gas shot up from the high 130s/low 140s to 155 a few weeks back, but when it dropped 3/4 of a yen, boy howdy is that good news!

I’m glad that my fuel economy is over 80 mpg…

Japanese to English, as translated by Cookie Monster:

From Japan Today:

TOKYO — A 16-year-old boy arrested Saturday after attacking five people and injuring two of them with kitchen knives on a Tokyo street has told police that he had “some relationship problems,” investigative sources said Sunday.

So let me get this straight. Buddy’s having trouble with his girl, so he decides to impress her by going on a stabbing spree. But here’s the thing. Even if she is actually the kind of girl who is impressed by a man on a stabbing spree (and if she is, he sure knows how to pick ‘em), the guy couldn’t even get it right! I mean, he only attacked 5 people, and only 2 were actually injured?

You know you’re a loser when you fail at going on a stabbing spree to impress your girl…