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The story
Kazu Laser, of the comedy duo Maple Chogokin, said on his YouTube show that after getting his driver’s license at age 42, he was shocked by how bad driving manners are in Tokyo. His comment that cars ignoring stop signs stood out sparked a wave of “I’ve experienced the same thing” replies on 5ch, while others countered with a driver’s-side argument that “whether you stop depends on the flow of traffic around you.” Some pointed to National Police Agency statistics showing that failing to stop is the single most-enforced traffic violation nationwide, and the discussion broadened into a wider debate about Tokyo’s traffic conditions in general.
Sep 8 (Tue), 5:58 PM
Kazu Laser (42), of the comedy duo Maple Chogokin, appeared in an episode of the YouTube channel “Kazu Laser and Shoinji’s Chill Room [Official],” updated as of the 8th, where he described being shocked by how bad driving manners are in Tokyo.
Kazu Laser said that after getting his driver’s license, he noticed poor driving manners while driving around Tokyo.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Everything's decided by the flow of traffic, baldy
Idiot: "I was just going with the flow"
Cop: "Not my problem"
I got overtaken for stopping
These people are insane
They don't stop even with a kid riding along
And cutting diagonally across without even checking is brutal too
You hit a point where you truly start hating humanity
And then it's a fork in the road — whether you go dark too or not
Drive it with a car mentality and you're guaranteed to get caught
Otherwise you have to keep merging right every time there's illegal parking blocking the way.
Especially at spots where nobody stops, cops usually stake those out — are there really no police in Tokyo? In Kanagawa you actually get ticketed for it
Normal people just slow down
Amateurs shouldn't be driving
Bet he actually obeys the speed limit too
That's just how it goes for guys who got weirdly stubborn about it back when they were single
"Deliberately not getting a license" has zero upside
Guess that was a lie?
Still figured it'd be better than Osaka, Fukuoka, or Nagoya though
For what it's worth, Tokyo actually tops the list for number of traffic accidents
Probably because traffic volume there is overwhelmingly higher, but that still makes its roads the most dangerous, no question
Everyone else got this over with at 18, old man
This is coming-of-age-ceremony-level conversation lol, everyone else finished this ages ago
That's wild
Signaling when there's no cars or people around is the dumb move lol
Are your eyes just for decoration lol
Getting a license does give you more legal knowledge and shifts your perspective, so of course you'll notice new things
But since most license holders already went through this phase themselves, it's a bit much when someone rants about it foaming at the mouth
The interviewer could've just teased him with:
"Nah, everyone thinks that once they get their license. You graduated way too late lol"
There's no way a car just doesn't — that leads straight to an accident
Like he said himself, he might be looking at some different set of rules
He should get his eyes checked
The graph above is based on the 2022 National Police Agency White Paper's "Traffic Violation Enforcement by Type (2020 and 2021)" data — the number of stop-sign violations enforced was 1,604,972 in 2020 and 1,588,628 in 2021, the highest of any violation category in both years.
Tokyo: won't even move aside for an ambulance
Shiga: every time I go there I see an overturned car
Kyoto/Osaka: aggressive, scary, out of their minds
Hyogo: not as bad as Kyoto, but still reckless
Kanagawa has good manners, pretty normal
Nationally speaking, the Kanto region has good manners
It's just Kansai that's out of its mind
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
National Police Agency statistics confirm that failing to stop at a stop sign is, year after year, the single most-enforced traffic violation across all categories (as cited in reply 104, from the 2022 National Police Agency White Paper). This suggests that treating stop signs as optional isn’t unique to Tokyo but a nationwide tendency, and that the legally baseless driving mentality of “going with the flow of traffic around you” tends to foster an atmosphere that excuses blowing through stop signs or forcing your way into merges. Commenters cited Tokyo’s high number of traffic accidents as evidence of “poor manners,” but that figure also reflects the fact that Tokyo’s traffic volume is overwhelmingly the highest in the country, so simply equating a high accident count with bad manners would be hasty. The fact that opinions were so divided when comparing driving manners across regions is also worth noting — most of these are subjective impressions rather than statistically grounded claims.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Entertainment/Sports News+) thread “Kazu Laser gets his driver’s license… and is stunned by Tokyo’s poor driving manners: “Nobody stops at stop signs… what is this? Are they playing by different rules?”“
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