ROAD COURTESY IN JAPAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 806, 29 October 1929, Page 6

ROAD COURTESY IN JAPAN

EXPLICIT INSTRUCTIONS Writing to a friend in New Zealand, an Englishman now resident in Yokohama. Japan, supplied the following amusing information. “We have quite a flock of automobiles here and they were becoming quite a menace, complicating our life and in some extreme cases even ending it; so the powers that protect us here felt a great need for some rules of the road and in order to insure that we all would act together, it was necessary to have them English. This is the way they were posted in the various police stations. (This Is a good illustration of the difficulties of expressing one's thought in another language. There is not supposed to be anything funny about this. This no doubt is how we sound in Japanese). 1. At the rise of the hand policeman, stop vapidly. 2. Do not pass him by or otherwise disj-espect him. 3. When a passenger of the foot hove in sight, tootle the horn; trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, tootle him with vigour and express by word of mouth the warning, “Hi, Hi.” 4. Beware the wandering horse that he shall not take fright as you’ pass him by; do not explode the exhaust box at him as you pass him by. Go soothingly by. 5. Give big space to the festive dog that shall sport in the roadway. 6. Go soothingly on the grease mud as there lurks the skidding demon. 7. Avoid entanglements of dog with your wheel spokes. S. Press the brake of the foot as you roll round the corner to save collapse and tie up. STOP! LOOK! LISTEN! Motorists should always remember: That a train runs on a definite path. It cannot get out of your way. That up to date there is no record of a motor-car wrecking a train. That the man in the motor-car always conies out second best in a collision. That the safe way Is always to expect a train at the crossing. That when there Is more than one track it is good business to expect more than one train. The second train may be the deadly one. That is pays to slow down and have the car under perfect control when approaching grade crossings. That the engine-driver can make no allowances whatsoever for the condition of jour brakes. That the train invariably has the right-of-way.