I've been in Japan quite a while but there are still some aspects of Japanese cu…

I’ve been in Japan quite a while but there are still some aspects of Japanese culture that I have trouble understanding. One is official announcements about where certain traffic violations will be enforced. The image is of a Google Chrome translation of

http://www.pref.kumamoto.jp/police/page1016.html

The web site has it’s own translation function but it’s about the same in quality as the Google translation, only without the option to return to the Japanese.

In a way, I guess it’s nice that some information is provided about when you need to be particularly careful about speeding and other offenses. On the other hand, isn’t this penalizing those who don’t know how to check the official announcements and favoring those who may break the law quite regularly but have learned how to avoid getting caught? I just don’t understand why this is publicized but other information that you would think should be public (recent information about where fatal traffic accidents have occurred, etc.) isn’t. (By the way, I was looking for information about the accident William reported on when I came across this.)

– Kirk

P.S. “Ban” in the machine translation is “はみ出し禁止” or crossing the center line. I think they will be looking for people who try to pass when it is not allowed.