I Was Forced to Watch a Morbid Video to Get My Driver's License Renewed

I went to get my Japanese drivers' license renewed yesterday. It took forever! Let me explain.

Japan, like the US, has a point system where you get penalized on your driver's license if you do something illegal. In the US, you get points for things like moving violations and drunk driving, but never for parking your insurance goes up. In Japan, you get points for everything including drunk driving and parking illegally, and they make you watch a morbid video when you're due for renewal.

I had two points on my license: one for parking on the street while I was getting a haircut, and once for turning left from a no turn lane. Plus I had inadvertently let my license expire because I live in the US and I wasn't here on my last birthday. So, after taking two different sets of ID photos, filling out some paperwork, and paying a bunch of money at ten different windows, I had to take a two hour class with the other delinquent drivers in a classroom on the third floor of the Samezu DMV.

For the first hour, a uniformed officer from the Metropolitan Police Department gave us a morbid lecture about deaths caused by traffic accidents. He gave us a detailed account (with a white board diagram)
of a case in which a mother, who was dropping off her elementary school kid in front of his school, accidentally ran over her own kid after he got off the car. He paraded a bunch of statistics like the number of deaths per prefecture and how many of those were caused by drunk drivers, and directed to us to pages 4-9 in our beautifully published safety driving manuals (made exclusively for use in this class) showing cartoon images of how people died in Tokyo.

After a quick break, we watched this really well-made soap opera about a father who was involved in a drunken hit-and-run. He ends up fessing up and going to jail; the kid goes bad; the wife drowns in guilt and debt and jumps in front of a train and dies. Such a sad story. Then we got another lecture at the end and we were free to go.

The morbidity of the lecture/video was pointing to one thing: as pedestrians, drivers, and members of the community as a whole, we have to play our part in raising consciousness about the dangers of reckless driving.

I think it's great that there's an emphasis on collective responsibility—but I also hated the two hour class. It was boring as hell.

Comments

[vagrant]

Is there an advantage of having a Japanese drivers license? I picked up an International Driving Permit at a AAA office for $15. I just need to carry my U.S. Drivers License when I drive and it's good for a year.

A friend just got his license for Japan, on the first try, but he had been driving in the U.S. for years. (I was told how difficult the testing is here.)

Or ughh...wait, perhaps you use your Japan drivers license and an IDP when you drive in the U.S.

[Cristiano]

The videos I had to see to get my driver's licence in Brazil are far worse, I assure you :)

Something like "Faces of Death" in traffic. Half my class felt sick and had to leave the classroom... Urg.

[kungfupiggy]

I took a 3-4 hour class in Florida before getting my first license. Together with good grades in school, it helped reduce insurance cost for youth drivers. It was sooooooooo boring, and we had to complete an exercise book. I'm sure the Japanese production is better. I want cartoon & soap opera.

[Dragonfang18]

Well at least you didnt have a driving instructor that told you to remember phrases in other languages, only to realize they were swears in other languages...

[tigermachine]

I saw a similar video at the junior high I work at a couple months ago. How underage drinking leads to a life of crime and shame. Junior high kid drinks and beats up a conbini clerk, gets kicked out of school. Family is shamed. I definitely give the Japanese credit for producing some very well done info-dramas.

[pirikara]

Hahah~ that's funny and sad. They're using isolated events to scare people, I see. My dad has a strange knack for doing that too. "There was this guy in Djibouti who was driving his small compact car....and he died!! So don't drive small cars!"