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Through movies and cartoons, Japan has earned a reputation for being a place of wonder and from a motoring point of view, of freedom. That's far from the truth though, as the one mighty Asian empire is more about repressing than expressing. You can't smoke in public, you can't talk on the phone if you're on a bus and if you cough in public… don't even think about doing it.
But what about picking your ear in the comfort of your own car, is that permitted? Not really, as one Japanese driver from the Saitama Prefecture, basically the Greater Tokyo Area, payed the price for cleaning his ears.
Kazunori Terashima was pulled over by a policeman back in May 2010 because it looked like he was using his cellphone. Kuzumori offered to show his phone records, which would prove he wasn't using it, but the policeman refused this as evidence. In October that year, he discovered that his driver's license had been demerited after the incident.
Terashima used to have a perfect "gold" card that had now been demoted to a blue "regular" one. In Japan, this means you might have to pay extra on insurance and have to attend cheap but long extracurricular classes about traffic safety.
Feeling like he was wrongfully accused, the Japanese driver sued and after three years a final verdict was given: the Saitama Prefecture has to pay him JPY350, or about $3. That's the cost of the classes he wrongfully had to attend. Victory!
Source: tokyo-np.co.jp
Kazunori Terashima was pulled over by a policeman back in May 2010 because it looked like he was using his cellphone. Kuzumori offered to show his phone records, which would prove he wasn't using it, but the policeman refused this as evidence. In October that year, he discovered that his driver's license had been demerited after the incident.
Terashima used to have a perfect "gold" card that had now been demoted to a blue "regular" one. In Japan, this means you might have to pay extra on insurance and have to attend cheap but long extracurricular classes about traffic safety.
Feeling like he was wrongfully accused, the Japanese driver sued and after three years a final verdict was given: the Saitama Prefecture has to pay him JPY350, or about $3. That's the cost of the classes he wrongfully had to attend. Victory!
Source: tokyo-np.co.jp
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