“Japan is Safety Country”

NOT!

If I had a yen for each time I have heard Japanese students in the US, my Japanese classmates in Japan and my students in Japan say this, I’d have no worries for the rest of my life on this rock.

“Safe” does not exist.  Those who believe it does are far more likely to meet St. Peter earlier in life than those who know it does not.  Those of us who know it does not exist understand why there are locks at Boy Scout camps.  Those who do not understand this, leave their doors unlocked at night and are shocked to find an intruder writhing their chambers.  Fools.

Traffic law in Japan is based largely on the belief that “safe” exists.  Actually, I do a mean disservice to the law governing traffic.  It is not that traffic law is foolish, it is that it is well beyond a century out of date.  That is another story, fascinating in its way, that is not for today.  The fact is that Japanese understanding of traffic law is based upon the naive notion that great effort is expended to instill in them, that as long as they follow the rules, no harm will befall them.  I used ”rules” in the previous sentence not for artistic variation, but as different from the “law”.  Regardless of what the “law” says on the subject, the rule is that the larger the entity, the more responsibility it has for any collision.   Thus, a pedestrian is never at fault for a collision with a bicycle, motorbike, coupe, sedan, or 10 ton truck, for it is unfair to them as they are unprotected as the operators of vehicles are.  This includes accidents involving pedestrians jaywalking or running across a crossing when the light is red.  They being taught, not as I was by my old man that despite what the law of man may say, the law of physics states that the bigger the vehicle, the more right of way it possesses, that the bigger the vehicle, they more responsibility they have to prevent accidents.  You can guess the result, and it is one that needlessly plays out countless times in the “Safety Country”.

As a pedestrian in Japan, long before I got my drivers license here, I realized several things.  One was that the painted lines on the road and traffic signals were mere suggestions at best.  Another was that these, as used, were more likely to lead to accidents than to prevent them, even without the Japanese belief in their safety.  I remember being angered at the motorists who were turning across the crosswalk as I was crossing on a green signal at a major intersection and then the utter shock I had when I saw that they too had a green light.  While we do see this in the US for side streets, I have never seen an instance where both pedestrians and turning vehicles had the green light at the same time at busy intersections in the US.  But we do in Japan, and in Tokyo.  The traffic problems this madness leads too are significant.  So too is the butcher’s bill.

Several years ago, when I renewed my drivers license here, I had to sit through a video on safety.  One of the features was of a grieving father, a “talento” or celeb in Japan whose daughter was killed  crossing on her bike on a green light by a large truck turning left through the same intersection, also with the green light.  While not specified in the video, I have enough knowledge of driving and of how people act in such situations that I am confident enough to state that the cause of the accident was both traffic law in Japan, the rule used here, and the believe in that nothing bad happens to “good” people who follow the rules and do nothing more.  The father would say much the same.  I’d bet me left arm that the girl and her mother, upon seeing the light turn green launched out into the street without a thought to looking left nor right, secure in their belief in the safety of their native land, while the driver, doing his best to see all he could, or not, matters not in this case as the cyclists would be in his blind spot and thus unseen regardless how attentive he may have been, made the turn and was as shocked as the surviving mother that he ran someone over.  The father’s last words on the is segment were, “Following the rules are not enough to ensure safety”, nah shit says the salty squid who has tried for decades to impart this fact of life to unreceptive audiences here.

Last Tuesday a first grader at my kids’ school was killed while crossing the street in a similar accident.  The intersection is the one my wife serves as crossing guard on the rare occasions they determine such are required, but only in morning.  There are no required crossing guards for the return from school though some crossings have volunteers in the afternoon; this one does not.

For reasons that elude me, many sing the praises of Japan’s health care system.  Those who do have the lowest of standards or at best have never experienced better and thus think better does not exist.  If I have not already, I may do a full post on the failings of Japan’s “exalted” medical system.  In addition to the Taraimawashi problem that did not exist in the US before Obamacare, but has  in Japan, Canada and the UK for decades, apparently we have the experience of last Tuesday.

The now 11 year old spends massive amounts of time on the toilet complaining that their stomach hurts.  While not daily, it happens as much as 5 days a week, and sometime multiple times a day.  They spend 30, 45 minutes to 4 1/2 hours on the toilet.  I suspect that their stomachache is not always physical in nature, as they seem to often have them for the duration they are home between school and cram school or swimming class, preventing them for doing their homework but not from missing the bus the to the next event.  But I don’t know, so I have long stated that we should bring the kid to see a doctor.  My wife kept telling me that if I thought it necessary, that I should do so.  My schedule did not allow for this until Tuesday.  After 4 1/2 hours on the toilet I took them to the nearest clinic dealing with digestive tract issues.

The medical interview consisted of, “So, you have a stomachache?  Lay down on the examining table”.  The doctor then asked if it hurt when they pressed here or there, listened to my kid’s abdomen and then prescribed 5 days worth of two types of medication.   That was it.  When I tried to tell the doc that the kid spend hours most days on the pot, the reaction was. “That’s nice, NEXT”.    Yes, the cost of the visit was a mere ¥200 and the meds were free as a result of my wife paying into they national health care scheme, but this was not worth the buck fifty or so I paid for the visit.   Back home I shared my disgust with my wife who said that was why she didn’t bather to bring him to a doctor, that the experience would be the same wherever we brought them.

At med school I teach medical interviewing.  I have, in the past, had the power to fail 4th year med students if they cannot do a proper medical interview.  This licensed doctor didn’t even perform one.  She would have been failed and been required to repeat the fourth year of med school.  But she is older than my students and thus escaped that requirement.  Still, this is the medical system that everyone seems to think is the cat’s meow. More like the cat’s vomit.