Japanese and Russian Tips for Visiting the US

[Ben]

Japanese travel tips:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/55140/10-japanese-travel-tips-visiting-america


Russian travel tips:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/54461/4-russian-travel-tips-visiting-america

[Tallpine]

Manners with cars in America are really damn good. Japanese people should be embarrassed when they look at how good car manners are in America. You must wait whenever you cross an intersection for the traffic light. People don’t get pushy to go first. Except for some people, everyone keeps exactly to the speed limit. America is a car society, but their damn good manners are not limited to cars.

Really     

[Perd Hapley]

Really     

I've always heard that we are more prone to follow the rules of the road than most other nationalities. I think we had a thread a while back about Americans just being more law-abiding in general.

[Tallpine]

I've always heard that we are more prone to follow the rules of the road than most other nationalities. I think we had a thread a while back about Americans just being more law-abiding in general.

Okay - so just go ahead and burst my bubble about how we are still the "wild west" and shoot each other down in the street at the slightest provocation just because we are mostly still allowed to have guns 

[vaskidmark]

So I take it none of you have tried to take a curve against an oncoming vehicle on a mountaion road in Spain at night.  Or attempted to get from Point A to Point B in the shortest (time and/or distance) interval in France, Italy, or India?

Frankly, I find the Germans much more law-abiding and not aggressive in their driving habits.  But then their traffic cops carry MP-5s and will not hesitate to use them.

Getting from City A to City B in (f)GB is wonderful, except that they are all driving on the wrong side of the road and tend to either stop dead in their tracks for no reason or try to challenge the speed records from the salt flats in their lorries.  Getting around within the municipality - not so much.  Hire a taxi and freak the driver out by bringing a to-go (take-away over there) cuppa to occupy your time when you are not gawking.

A bonus tip - do not do donuts down the middle of that main street in Moscow (the one where they used to hold their military parades in front of the Kremlin) at 2 AM while the babushkas are trying to sweep all the snow off the pavement in the middle of a blizzard.

stay safe.

[Scout26]

"Stop smiling at me you commie bastard."

I will second what VA said about driving in Europe.  In Germany, fast as you want on the Autobahn, but you damn well better be following the rules.   In Britain, the rules vary wildly and may or may not be obeyed.  In Italy and France (WTF is up with the yellow headlights ??  To match the color of your spines perhaps??), if there are rules, no one knows them, nor do they feel any compunction to follow them.  In Italy, most driving is done by horn.

China (Hong Kong) is a whole 'nother one.  Sometimes, they are very good about following the rules, and then other times, its like Death Race 2000.

[Jamie B]

Really     

Obviously they have never driven in Boston rush hour traffic.


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[lee n. field]

Okay - so just go ahead and burst my bubble about how we are still the "wild west" and shoot each other down in the street at the slightest provocation just because we are mostly still allowed to have guns 

Unnh!   You mean we can't?   <pout>no fair</pout>.

[freakazoid]

Watching other people drive in the Philippines is scary.

[vaskidmark]

Watching other people drive in the Philippines is scary.

Next time, try in from the back seat of your friend's father's car instead of sitting at the window of a restaurant.  By the third church we passed I was seriously considering converting.  Anything to get out of there.

stay safe.

[K Frame]

Guy I know has told me stories about driving in South America, particularly Brazil...

Terrifying isn't quite a strong enough word.

[AmbulanceDriver]

Brazil is very interesting to drive (or ride) in.  Lane markers, turn signals, lights, stop signs, etc are all merely suggestions, or so it seems.  The problem is that heavy trucks/semis/buses also seem to follow the same lack of rules...  

[MikeB]

  

 In Japan, there is great fear of failure and mistakes in front of other people. It is better to do nothing and avoid being criticized than to taste the humiliation of failure. As a result, there are things we wanted to do, but did not, and often regret.

    In America, you can make mistakes, fail, and it doesn’t matter. It is a fundamental feeling that to sometimes be incorrect is natural. In addition, rather than thinking about mistakes and failures, American’s have curiosity and say, "Let’s try anyway!"

This is a surprisingly astute observation about a difference in Japanese and some other Oriental cultures vs. the US.

As for the driving thing. We are more orderly in the US compared to most other countries (especially in Asia) in obeying traffic rules except probably for speeding.

[French G.]

Driving in Norway sucked the soul out of me. Any major road has speed trap cameras everywhere. You know, like Montgomery County! The back roads were fun, as fast as I could whip my 1.3 liter rental beast, but the 300ft drop to the fjord with no guardrail does tend to enforce sensibility.

St. Croix, American cars, British roads. Fun for me, not so much for the passenger sitting at road centerline.

Naples Italy, somebody gave me a pretty sporty van, couple hundred worth of fuel vouchers and told me that the path to survival was to drive like the locals. I did crap that would make a NYC driver cry.

France, didn't drive, try jaywalking though!

Yeah, in general American drivers are pretty tame.

[Perd Hapley]

I think it goes beyond driving. I was told by a professor of East Asian history that it's pretty much ancient Chinese tradition to keep one set of books for the tax-man, and one set for real life.

A prof in modern European history had similar things to say about Italy, especially southern Italy.

[Tallpine]

Judging from the conference calls, the horn is the primariy driving control in India 

[Zardozimo Oprah Bannedalas]

Yes, Americans are complete slaves to the rules of the road compared with pretty much every other country in the world.

People may follow the rules of the road in Singapore. The odds of them doing so anywhere else in Asia are slim.

Strange that these tips did not mention the American safety fetish, which is blatantly obvious when traveling most anywhere else.

[MechAg94]

By the way, 'see you later' should not be taken literally. That is a courtesy, and no more.

I saw this referenced a couple times in the Russian link.  Would they take "see you later" as an invitation?  Of course, I think I only say that to people I see all the time anyway.  They also warn about showing up at people's houses uninvited. 

[Balog]

I think it goes beyond driving. I was told by a professor of East Asian history that it's pretty much ancient Chinese tradition to keep one set of books for the tax-man, and one set for real life.

A prof in modern European history had similar things to say about Italy, especially southern Italy.

Tax evasion is the national sport of Greece.

[K Frame]

Tax evasion is the national sport of Greece.

But let the government tell the Greeks that their social services are being cut to hell and back because there isn't enough tax revenue to support it, and they go all feral monkey and riot in Astigmatic Square...

[lupinus]

Judging from the conference calls, the horn is the primariy driving control in India 

I always found it interesting how a lot of countries use the car horn very similarly to how we use our forklift horns. More as signal/communication as opposed to simply ohshit/ahole! which are about the only things most American drivers use it for.

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[Balog]

But let the government tell the Greeks that their social services are being cut to hell and back because there isn't enough tax revenue to support it, and they go all feral monkey and riot in Astigmatic Square...

Everyone wants stuff, no one wants to pay for it. De Tocqueville was right. I grow more and more convinced that democracy is a particularly problematic nd unstable form of government.

[K Frame]

Gimmie some free stuff and I'll agree with you...

[Tallpine]

I always found it interesting how a lot of countries use the car horn very similarly to how we use our forklift horns. More as signal/communication as opposed to simply ohshit/*expletive deleted*! which are about the only things most American drivers use it for.

I just figured that they were honking to get the chickens out of the road