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chirp
Joined: 03 Dec 2005
Posts: 148
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 Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:14 am Post subject: |
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| PAULH wrote: |
| chirp wrote: |
I feel really stupid asking this - but can I not just park outside of my home??  |
Not unless you want to get a parking ticket or it towed away. the front of your house is not your private property but public land and it will be considered an obstruction if you park it on the street. You can not buy a car here unless you show the police you have a parking space or a garage. i think they issue a sticker you put on your windscreen.
In Tokyo they are employing traffic wardens who even issue tickets to delivery trucks who make 2 minute stops to offload parcels. Illegal parking is a HUGE problem in big cities. |
Sorry! I come from a land with driveways... 
I'll figure this out yet!  |
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PAULH
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 4672
Location: Western Japan
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| Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:27 am Post subject: |
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| chirp wrote: |
Sorry! I come from a land with driveways...
I'll figure this out yet! |
Not all houses have driveways, and if you are like me you might live in a 10 story apartment block with 100 families living in it.
The apartment may have parking spaces or a garage (my apartment comes with a parking space) or you rent a nearby space at a private parking lot. Before my current job I lived in Kyoto and we paid 10,000 yen a month to rent a space.
Some private houses have their own garage but theres enough space for a car. Driveways per se are rare in japan and front lawns are non existent except for wealthy people. |
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JimDunlop2
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Posts: 2286
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:28 am Post subject: |
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| PAULH wrote: |
You can not buy a car here unless you show the police you have a parking space or a garage. i think they issue a sticker you put on your windscreen.
In Tokyo they are employing traffic wardens who even issue tickets to delivery trucks who make 2 minute stops to offload parcels. Illegal parking is a HUGE problem in big cities. |
Paul, he lives in a small town (for starters), and if he is considering leasing (or renting) a car, he won't have to register a parking space. I'd say it depends on the neighbourhood. If all the neighbours are parked in front of their houses, then it's probably a fair indication that it may be alright. But if not, then yeah, you likely need to rent a parking spot somewhere OR find some abandoned lot or something.
Just a quick note on that -- recently I was at a friend's house. They live in a very large, two-story house, surrounded mainly by grape orchards. Unfortunately, they tend to get large dump trucks parking on the shoulder of the road on either side of their driveway.
Getting fed up with it (and having already spoken to the owner of the truck), they called the police. The police said that there was NOTHING they could do, as the space they were parked on was no-man's land... I.e. it belonged neither to the city, nor to the owner of the lot that the house was on... It was effectively, a convenient loophole where people could literally abandon cars.
On the up-side, however, they offered to call the truck owner on their behalf, identifying themselves as the police, and kindly requesting them to move their truck (which they did in the end). But when my friends asked what they could do with that no-man's-land, they were told:
"Anything you want."
"Plant a garden?"
"Yup."
"Cordon it off?"
"Yup."
"Use it for our own parking when we have a party?"
"Yup."
Basically anything goes provding you're not breaking any other laws or ordinances in doing so.... That's part of the paradox of Japanese law and society rules as a whole. Where I come from, land MUST belong to someone -- either the city, province or an individual. There's no such thing as "no-man's land." |
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Sweetsee
Joined: 11 Jun 2004
Posts: 2302
Location: ) is everything
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| Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:36 am Post subject: |
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| First night we had our car we parked it out front and got a ticket that cost 30,000 yen. Ouch! |
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PAULH
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 4672
Location: Western Japan
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| Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:44 am Post subject: |
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| JimDunlop2 wrote: |
| Basically anything goes provding you're not breaking any other laws or ordinances in doing so.... That's part of the paradox of Japanese law and society rules as a whole. Where I come from, land MUST belong to someone -- either the city, province or an individual. There's no such thing as "no-man's land." |
Like anything there are always exceptions.
I met up with a friend in Nagoya who ran a boxing gym and the landlords house was next to it, the property was surrounded by small factories and rice paddies. the land in front also had enough room for half a dozen cars. He simply parked his van out front. Most built up areas dont have that luxury.
Where I live there are abandoned cars etc on side streets but they dont stay there for long. A lot depends on where in the country you are and as Jim says what kind of living arrangements you have. |
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JimDunlop2
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Posts: 2286
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:46 am Post subject: |
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| Sweetsee wrote: |
| First night we had our car we parked it out front and got a ticket that cost 30,000 yen. Ouch! |
AND don't forget -- you also lose points on your license...
30,000 is a bit much. Where I live is only about 15,000.  |
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Sweetsee
Joined: 11 Jun 2004
Posts: 2302
Location: ) is everything
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| Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:54 am Post subject: |
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No worries there Jim because I was running on an IDL up until just recently. Yep, four tries and the Saturday training course did the trick!
Enjoy,
s |
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