Traffic Police in Japan

Nothing surprising though.

I bought a car. A used car for USD2K. (Budget rose 100% from my last Japan life). I am in the process of transferring the registration to my name. Very simple steps compared to what the International schools out here have as their admission procedure.

1. I need to get a parking lot. Luckily I have parking included in my apartment rent. Last time, I used the car for one year. I paid more for parking in that one year, than the car purchase price. Anyway, this time I just had to get the papers from teh apartment office. The location of the apartment, the drive way, exact position of parking, driving directions till the slot. With their seal.

2. Next fill the Shako shome no youshi. This is the application form for parking permission. I filled in the details here. Car make, height, length, width. Police has to confirm that this car can be parked in this slot with no issues. Thats why this is being handled at the police station.

Police? Yes, in Japan there is no traffic police. Or in other words there is only traffic police. Traffic and parking pre occupies the police force here. You can see No parking, No stopping signs on any road here. At a minimum No Parking. If you see a road with no such sign? Well, by default all places in Japan are No Parking unless the expensive P is not found. In Tokyo this P would cost around 7-8 dollar per hour. In our office building, they have a full day scheme for 24 dollars a day.

So the police will always be patroling for these parking violations. You can see small Alto - Zen varieties of cute police cars driving past the parked vehicles. They use a long chalk which they use to mark the tyres-to-road line while they drive. They will then come again in 30 minutes. If the car is not moved - if the line over tyre and road are still aligned - they will put a small tag. You need to take this to police station and pay the fine. Could be like 100 to 200 dollars depending on the area.

Effectively the police here do nothing else than parking checks and traffic violations. Recently there was a house bugarly reported to which the Police said on the spot that they cant do anything. The burglars would have fled the country already. The default assumption is that, all mischief done by Chinese. And police cannot do anything, right? Not just me, even the Prime Minister knows the Police cant do anything. Read this http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4287899.stm

So now you dont wonder why only 1 out of 5 counters in the police station is handling non-traffic crimes.

Information / Reception
Consultation for crime victims
Registration of garage
Application for the use of roads (dont know what this is)
Parking matters (probably this is where parking fines are handled)

And on the 4th floor there was a counter for paying the fees too:)