Goodbye Gold card

[canman]

[Taro Toporific]

I got nailed by the cops yesterday for speeding! ...I hope its not something like 5 years, that would be really punitive, on top of the Y12000 I have to pay.

Yep, five years.
(I just got nailed for "illegal lane change" as if any taxi/motorcycle/delivery-truck pays attention to any lane markings in Japan. )

[james]

i've had a gold licence for awhile too, but does it actually get you anything? my car insurance is currently with JA and they don't offer any sort of discount for having a gold licence. perhaps i should check out the competition?

[GomiGirl]

i've had a gold licence for awhile too, but does it actually get you anything? my car insurance is currently with JA and they don't offer any sort of discount for having a gold licence. perhaps i should check out the competition?

You can become a taxi driver... that is about all I know. I am on a green one as I only got mine a year or so ago.

[Greji]

You can become a taxi driver... that is about all I know. I am on a green one as I only got mine a year or so ago.

I thought that's where it all started!

I had a masturbating hermaphrodite J-taxi driver once.

[GomiGirl]

Nah - that was gomichild who had the hermaphrodite taxi driver.

[FG Lurker]

You can become a taxi driver... that is about all I know. I am on a green one as I only got mine a year or so ago.

Mine is blue, but it is only a matter of time before I get a ticket really.

(I got pulled over doing 140 in a 60 zone and got a warning once...)

[ttjereth]

[ttjereth]

i've had a gold licence for awhile too, but does it actually get you anything? my car insurance is currently with JA and they don't offer any sort of discount for having a gold licence. perhaps i should check out the competition?

Only having to renew it once every 5 years as opposed to once every three years for one.

[FG Lurker]

(I just got nailed for "illegal lane change" as if any taxi/motorcycle/delivery-truck pays attention to any lane markings in Japan. )

There are lane markings in Japan!?

[canman]

So I get to keep the gold card for another three years, then trade it in for a blue for three years, then back to gold hopefully. My wife told me that I will have to sit through some dumb two hour seminar, which I didn't have to do last time.
I was just a tad nervous when the pulled me over, after reading the story by the Swedish photojournalist, but the cops were pretty easy going. Although I'm not sure why they had to ask me what I do for a living, what that has anything to do with me speeding. At first I was quite pissed, since I was sure there was a truck doing the same speed as I was following him, but I lightened up in the back of the van. The older of the two cops asked me if I was done for the day, and I said no I had a company lesson across the city starting in about 20 minutes. He looked at his watch and said he thought it would be difficult to get there on time. I said " no problem I will drive between 80-100 kph and get there in no time" which got a laugh out of both of them. Little did they know I was serious.
The only good thing that came out of yesterday's incident is that I figure if I can handle a traffic stop and ticket all in Japanese, then I guess I have enough Japanese to live here.

[omae mona]

The only good thing that came out of yesterday's incident is that I figure if I can handle a traffic stop and ticket all in Japanese, then I guess I have enough Japanese to live here.

Only one step left: improve your Japanese enough to be able to smooth-talk them out of issuing the ticket

[AssKissinger]

My wife told me that I will have to sit through some dumb two hour seminar

I had to do that because I was in an accident. My Japanese is so shit I barely understood a thing but the instructor was doing math problems to explain how much time you need to stay behind the car in front of you to avaoid collisions on sudden stops. I was thinking how most Americans wouldn't even understand that shit in their first language.

[Big Booger]

I had to do that because I was in an accident. My Japanese is so shit I barely understood a thing but the instructor was doing math problems to explain how much time you need to stay behind the car in front of you to avaoid collisions on sudden stops. I was thinking how most Americans wouldn't even understand that shit in their first language.

I just did this at the beginning of January and wound up surfing the web on my keitai during the whole fucking rigmarole. The guy next to me caught on to my game and started texting during the lecture and stupid video portion... Half the people I saw in that joint were either asleep or off in space meditating or something.

[omae mona]

I had to do that because I was in an accident. My Japanese is so shit I barely understood a thing but the instructor was doing math problems to explain how much time you need to stay behind the car in front of you to avaoid collisions on sudden stops. I was thinking how most Americans wouldn't even understand that shit in their first language.

I think everybody has to attend a seminar during the course of a regular license renewal (except maybe if you have the gold license). Maybe the contents of the regular renewal seminar are different. But anyway, if there was ever a time I wished I understood *less* Japanese, it was while sitting through that safety seminar. Ugh, painful. AK, you were lucky.

[james]

they are definitely pointless. the first renewal, from green to blue, was so absolutely pointless that even the instructor was mostly just going through the motions. my eldest son was.. barely a year old at the time i guess, so i brought him with me in my m.e.c. baby backpack and we both slept through it for the most part.

when i went for my second renewal, or maybe third, from blue to gold, it wasn't even a seminar, just some stupid video and some pleather couches. i was the only one there and when i went in, the video was already about 1/3 of the way through. as the guy ushered me in he said to just relax and 適当でいい.

in any case, i'm gold for another couple years.

[Mulboyne]

I think the tedium and inconvenience is part of the point. It's not something people are happy to go through again and asking your company for time to attend off can be particularly painful for some locals.

[Greji]

I think everybody has to attend a seminar during the course of a regular license renewal (except maybe if you have the gold license). Maybe the contents of the regular renewal seminar are different. But anyway, if there was ever a time I wished I understood *less* Japanese, it was while sitting through that safety seminar. Ugh, painful. AK, you were lucky.

Spot on. I had to go through that when I lost my gold cherry! Seems as though going 80k in the maintenance lane on the Shuto during traffic jams is frowned upon by the fuzz who were dirty enough to be driving a silver mercedes with a hidden bubblegum machine.

So I had that speech for two hours plus, upon renewal. Actually, they didn't show any of the morbid death crashes like they do (or used to do) in the US. But they did have several sad, but poorly done video clips of widows and mothers who had lost children to reckless drivers. Strangely, they had little about drunk driving. But unless you have a high level interest in studying Japanese given in a monotone for 2-3 hours by a bored police official, I recommend you take a good book if you are unlucky enough to get selected for one of these sessions at renewal time.

[American Oyaji]

[canman]

[emperor]

A friend just came back from a 2 week trip to japan.
He went with his missus and her folks and friends of theirs to Nagano for a couple of days: all 7 travelled in the new Volvo of a family friend, including a chick in the boot.

At one point the new Volvo owner decided to test the car out & brought it up to 160 (km i'm presuming): it was around 0C that day: icy roads?

5-10 mins later he gets stopped by the cops, the girl in boot throws jackets over herself and hides, and he's brought to the squad car and shown footage of him driving from their vehicle mounted camera....

Turns out they missed the couple of minutes when he put his foot to the floor: he gets fined Y5000 for driving too close to the vehicle in front and sent on his way...

lucky ne

[Greji]

and he's brought to the squad car and shown footage of him driving from their vehicle mounted camera....lucky ne

They also have a computer thingy that shows the exact speed your car and their patrol car was going when they clocked you. I assume it is used with radar. I had the oportunity to see one of these up close and exact, when they were explaining that F1 speeds are not smiled upon on Ome Kaido. This was just prior to them giving me a special invitation to pay 17,000 yen at the nearest participating Conbini or banking facility.

[james]

They also have a computer thingy

well there you go again, throwing all this technical jargon at us!

i've been fortunate so far as to have never been pulled over for speeding, some of the back roads around here don't really allow for it anyway, at least not in the current conditon of being iced over and with trees lying across them.

[FG Lurker]

i've been fortunate so far as to have never been pulled over for speeding

First you gotta buy a car that can exceed the speed limit James!

(Sorry man, just couldn't resist.)

[Behan]

he gets fined Y5000 for driving too close to the vehicle in front and sent on his way...

lucky ne

I thought tailgating was required here.