> Is it really possible that American driving manners are better than Japanese ones?
It's absolutely and utterly untrue.
Japanese drivers are generally very good, and tend to be reasonably polite/easy-going (the notable exception being anybody in a Ferrari or the like, but that's universal I guess), both in the countryside and in big cities. There are some annoying ingrained habits in Japanese driving (e.g. there's always a car or two that drives through when the light turns red, they seem to ignore yellow completely), but by and large they're fairly law-abiding. As a pedestrian, one doesn't feel like a target / second-class citizen (I'm referring to driver attitude here, though of course better urban design also helps).
It's absolutely and utterly untrue.
Japanese drivers are generally very good, and tend to be reasonably polite/easy-going (the notable exception being anybody in a Ferrari or the like, but that's universal I guess), both in the countryside and in big cities. There are some annoying ingrained habits in Japanese driving (e.g. there's always a car or two that drives through when the light turns red, they seem to ignore yellow completely), but by and large they're fairly law-abiding. As a pedestrian, one doesn't feel like a target / second-class citizen (I'm referring to driver attitude here, though of course better urban design also helps).
American drivers, welll....... ><