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Stark reminder (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/rareinsults@lemmy.world
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[–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

cars drive slowly and carefully because their drivers acknowledge the street as a shared space.

As someone who lives in Japan, I can assure you that this isn't true.

My life is going to end under the wheels of a hi ace or a mamachari.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I'm not saying they always drive slowly, but in my experience in Japan, they do in those small, one-lane residential streets where there's no room for a sidewalk. Is that not what you've experienced? I never lived in Japan long-term, but I've visited a bunch of times, and whenever I was in areas like that the drivers were cautious.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    I'm not sure what drivers are like where you live, so maybe our standards are different haha.

    But pretty much everyone hates these streets. Drivers hate how narrow they are. Cyclists hate weaving between cars and pedestrians, and pedestrians hate being the least protected things on a street full of fast moving vehicles trying to kill them.

    The fact that rich assholes in Tokyo are starting to buy huge American sizes SUVs as status symbols is making the problem worse too.

    At the end of the day, the best thing for every city is to make it as inaccessible as possible for personal cars, and make sure pedestrians and cyclists have their own delineated spaces for transport.

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