Lost In Translation Tidbit : Automotive Transport

While there are a lot of cars in Tokyo, it is quite a small number compared to the population. It is quite expensive to own a car in town, and expensive to get your licence ($2000 dollars for lessons). Here are some observations I have gathered about cars in Tokyo.

• The "no cars older than 3 years" concept that I was lead to believe is false. I saw cars much older (80s - 90s) but I did not see any "beat up" cars.
• 99% of the cars have Widescreen indash DVD players and Sat Nav. Even the cheapest small cars have it built in, and older cars have add on units
• Hardly Any Riceboy cars. I was expecting to see heaps of them, like in Northbridge, but no. I have seen maybe 1 rice boy car, and a couple of hot cars (porche, lamborgini etc) but none done up stupidly like we see driving around Perth.
• Not many motor bikes. Lots of scooters though, and some are awesome massive scooters.
• Taxis are very nice, but expensive. Every taxi is beautiful, and they have automatic doors that open and close for you.
• Buses are popular, and there are "Highway" buses which are like coaches that go out to the suburbs
• Due to the high cost of ownership, most of the cars are VERY nice, BMW, High end Toyotas, Mercedes, Audi etc
• Alot of cars we haven't seen. Toyota and Nissan have some wicked cars out here that we haven't seen anything of yet. Mazda is about the only manufacturer that I recognised their whole lineup

Interesting stuff...