It was bound to happen.
Frankly, I’m a little surprised it took this long, given the fact that I inherited my dad’s lead foot, and the fact that unless you’re on the highway, Japan is basically one huge school zone. The speed limit on most surface roads is 40 kilometers per hour—for those of you who are metrically challenged, that’s 25 mph.
It started as such a good day. The soreness from the Fuji climb is finally gone, so I went to the base to have lunch with Jim and run the errands I’d put off all week on account of my hobbling. I was in my own little world on the drive home, thinking thoughts of nothing, just enjoying the sunshine and a (finally) recognizable song on the Japanese radio station. There were cars a couple blocks up ahead of me, and thanks to getting caught at one of the many stoplights, I was the right-lane co-leader of a pack of several more cars. We were all traveling at about the same speed—I was not closing the gap on the cars ahead, nor was I pulling away from those following me. Nevertheless, as I was about to exit a tunnel, I heard the whoop of a siren and looked up to see a motorcycle cop behind me. Ever since we moved here, I’d been wondering about the police. They always seem to be driving around with their red lights flashing, so how would a person know if he was in trouble and should pull over? Now I know. Slowing down and easing off to the right, I was praying he just wanted to pass me. No such luck. He indicated that he wanted me to follow him to a suitable place to pull over. Damn.
We pulled off into a bus stop, with the motorcycle parked in front of me. That would never happen in the U.S.—some lunatic would just run the cop over and keep going. He got off his bike in his blue janitor uniform and shiny white helmet, took off his shades and gloves, and came back to my car to ask if I spoke Japanese. I told him not so much, so he was going to have to use his English. I was really hoping he’d decide it wasn’t worth the trouble to try to communicate with me and let me off with a warning (this hope was bolstered by the fact that he hadn’t automatically come to my car with his ticket book). He sternly told me what the speed limit on the road was, and pointed up to the radar display on his bike, which showed I had been going 58 kph. I kept apologizing as he kept repeating “safety driving,” then asked for my driver’s license. When he walked back to his bike with my license, with other cars whizzing by fast enough to rock his motorcycle, I was still hoping he’d run my info in his little computer, see I had no other violations and really was a fairly “safety driver,” and go after a more deserving target. Apparently, all he was getting from his little computer was a printout of my speed, which he brought back to my car taped to a ticket. I had to fill in my info, initial the speed printout as proof that he had not attached a bogus slip, and sign the ticket, a copy of which he said would be forwarded to my husband’s command (office) on base. With more admonishments of “safety driving,” he gave me an instruction sheet in English that informed me I had to go to the post office within seven days to pay my fine or be hauled off to jail.
Being pissed off that he actually gave me the ticket when everyone else was going just as fast as I was, and that he couldn’t cut a gaijin a little slack, and that the fine was ¥12,000 (over $120!), and that they were soon going to tattle on me to Jim’s office, I just barely repressed the urge to give him my business card for English lessons when he issued his final warning about “safety driving.” It’s “SAFE driving” you heartless jerk! Yet in the end, I was left feeling like the jerk when he bowed before walking past his bike and into the road to usher me safely back into the flow of traffic in that infinitely (and in this case, infuriatingly) polite way the Japanese have of doing everything. Something about that bow made me feel more shame than the entirety of his stern lecture. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt quite so small in my life.
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