It’s the linguistic Singularity. Soon we’ll all be learning Ithkuil.
Heh. Maybe we are all doomed to eventually communicate via prompts for AI drawing and holographic performance engines.
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Imagine how much energy could be saved if they had glass doors on the konbini fridges… wild.
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Damn, that’s a great point too…
Why, Japan, why?!?
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I had to blink twice, because I forgot not everywhere it’s a thing 
.
To be fair, a couple of fridges in European country would also profit from having glass door.
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Took a picture of my driving school book. As far as I understand, although there are several publishers the contents are decided by government guidelines, so the words are pretty much the same for everyone no matter what book they use.
I think the first thing to take notice here is the 「サイレンを鳴らして」 line at the bottom. Japanese traffic rules are pretty clear: No buzz, no hurry. And Japanese in general are aware of that, so regarding what @Wizz said, not caring about police or ambulances that have their lights on but no sirens is expected behavior in Japan. If the siren is off it’s not supposed to be considered an “emergency car”.
“Then what are these cars doing with lights on but sound off?”
They say the police is usually “on patrol”. Not actually heading to an accident nor anything, just walking around town and checking if everything is ok. Japanese usually say that having the police lights on help reducing crimes, because it makes the police stand out.
As for ambulances, it is not as clear, but they usually say that it happens when “it’s not an emergency”, whatever that means.
All of that being said, I also think Japanese pedestrians are often worryingly not-caring about ambulances and police cars with sirens on.
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Thank you for sharing! This is quite helpful
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Yeah, but I don’t want people to hear my business.
Then make noises yourself. Hiss.
Sing. 
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That’s interesting but makes me concerned for Deaf drivers
You need to have a certain level of vision to drive, so if you always know to get out the way of a police car/ambulance with a flashing light, then it doesn’t matter if you can’t hear a siren.
but if you’re driving and can’t tell if your meant to continue as normal or rush to get out of the way, that could get dangerous…
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Now that I think about it, this is the case in Sweden as well.
It’s a matter of traffic safety really, where it’s best not to distrupt traffic if possible - as that’s when accidents might happen.
An abulance might have a non-emergency patient that still needs to be taken to the hospital, for example. I now realize that I’ve been one such patient one time. ^^’
Same for police. They don’t regularly use their lights here in Sweden though. They’re mostly seen along with the siren and then it is an emergency where traffic should get out of the way. I guess, they might leave the lights on, when standing still, having pulled someone over. That’s helpful to alert traffic that they’re standing by the road. I can’t remember another example of lights-only police cars right now. 
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Actually I was thinking the same while writing my reply, just didn’t bother checking.
Since someone else cared about it, went after it.
It seems that there is a hearing requirement for taking a driver’s license,
10メートルの距離で90ｄBの警音器の音が聞こえること, being able to hear a 90db siren from a 10m distance (hearing aid is allowed), so drivers are supposed to be able to hear an ambulance even if they have some sort of hearing loss.
If the person cannot clear that requirement, it seems they can still get a driver’s license, but only for adapted cars with special mirrors and must always have a sticker of “deaf driver” on the car.
https://www.police.pref.hokkaido.lg.jp/info/koutuu/menkyo/choukaku-menkyo.html
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It makes sense, but given how in the UK even completely Deaf people can drive, it seems like an unnecessary restriction on a group’s freedom
I suppose a kanji learning forum isn’t the place to get up in arms about disability rights, however
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Yeah… We would need to bring up the color blindness test you take when getting a driver’s license in Japan and that’s even worse a topic.
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*big sigh *
… … … … …
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Are the requirements strict actually? I don’t have a driver’s licence, but I am hoping to get one at some point, and while I’m not completely colour-blind, I am a little colour-deficient. The fact that Japan seems to love its green lights almost blue actually helps me though, because I basically only have trouble with very dark or very washed out shades of red and green i.e. even though regular traffic lights have never been an issue for me, Japanese traffic lights would probably be even easier for me to differentiate.
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I feel like this is great, but everyone gets older and getting hard of hearing is very common. People don’t get their licensed pulled just because they require hearing aids, but at some point, I’m sure there is an issue there you won’t hear the ambulance behind you and you’re not driving an adapted car either.
Just some thoughts. So, far I know of no studies being made about this - as in are elderly more prone to end up in accidents when there are ambulances involved, or some such. It would be interesting to know for sure. 
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Not at all. As far as I understand it’s more like “let’s pretend we are checking”.
I don’t remember being checked for color blindness at the driving school (but we did take some of those aptitude tests and it’s possible there was a color question that I just don’t remember), but I do remember that when I went to take the final paper exam at the police, one officer went table by table with a printed traffic lights card, asking “which color is this one?” while pointing to one of the three lights.
I also have a friend who did get one of those proper test with lots of tiny colored dots where you are supposed to see a number when he was enrolling into the driving school. As a color blind person, he couldn’t read the number, but then they got him a different paper with just the four basic colors in very contrasting and as-obvious-as-humanly-possible hues for him to identify. He got them right and no one ever asked a single word again.
But again, even though they have the color blindness test, they also claim the colors at the lights are specifically chosen to be easier to identify by the color-blind and etc, so it’s a very contradicting issue.
If you are planning on taking a driver’s license in Japan, be aware that you will most likely be checked for that somewhere in the process. But even if you fail, things will most likely “work out themselves”, lol.
From what I understand, after a certain age when you renew your license you actually get tested for health-related issues. As in if your sight is still ok, if your hearing is still ok, etc.
Sure, hearing loss due to age is an issue, but being unable to hear a siren from ten meters away even with hearing aid is pretty extreme and would be considered “deaf” for all matters. Considering Japan allows you to register as a handicapped person and that gives you several benefits regarding taxes, medicine and etc., I believe a person with such a hearing loss would have long registered themselves by then.
But even then, fear not. For what Japan has created “elderly driver” stickers too.
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The stickers are great! XD I was thinking in more general terms though, including about my home country. As far as I know, there are no health check-ups as you get older, which really should get done. A doctor should have the authority to ban someone from driving really. But, i’m also unsure of the dangers elderly pose in traffic. After all, young men are the biggest demographic group causing accidents, so yeah, focusing on the elderly, doesn’t seem as useful as just working at improving young men’s driving abilities, habits and attitude toward risky and bad driving.
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Mmm; in the UK there is a mechanism for the doctor to say you can’t drive, and a list of medical conditions you have to tell the licensing authorities about, but there are no driving related health tests simply because you’re aging. The underlying problem I think is that in most of the country if you can’t drive you are giving up a great deal of mobility and independence, so it’s politically difficult to have a process that would be pushing elderly people into being much more housebound.
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