What crosswalk?
August 04, 2006
Driving in general in Osaka is a bitch. The city is not very big but it houses 5 million people and at last count 500 billion vehicles. As police have bigger things to deal with, like stopping people from jumping into the Dotombori and evicting homeless people from parks, traffic violations seem to be at the bottom of the list. Here is a fairly typical sight I see in the morning when I go to work. This truck makes regular stops in my neighborhood. And yes, it is parked, with its left wheels on the sidewalk.
August 5th, 2006 at 01:39
I know, I thought sidewalks were supposed to be for foot traffic, but as I saw in China, it in fact is for taxi’s. Many a times we were in a cab that decided to beat the traffic by getting onto the sidewalk and honk the horn to get the people out of his way. I was only in a cab once when it slightly knicked someone. Although I didn’t understand the argument, the oddest thing was that the cabbie was more annoyed than the pedestrian.
August 5th, 2006 at 12:55
I bet. Whoever said Asian cultures are more collectivist never got into a car with one. “Out of my way, comrade!”