I Met a Lot of Policemen

Mike Cash · 23 Feb 2016

Last evening, while on my way back to Gunma from the docks in Tokyo, my truck had a mechanical breakdown in the right-hand lane of one of Tokyo's busiest streets during rush hour. As soon as I determined there was no way possible to move even one inch, I turned on the hazard lights, picked up my phone and called the police to come divert traffic around me.

Calling the police was the last thing in the world I wanted to do, because even though I was in Tokyo my drivers license and gaijin card were in my wallet lying atop my kotatsu in faraway Gunma. I had forgotten it when I came to work.

I'm sure we have all heard or read the horror stories from people who have been found without their gaijin card. There I was in a tractor-trailer, a gaijin with neither drivers license nor gaijin card. Anybody want to guess what the police did?

thomas · 23 Feb 2016

Are you posting from a holding cell? [insert smug smilie]

I guess they asked you to send in copies of your particulars as soon as you can...

WonkoTheSane · 23 Feb 2016

Torture and deportation. Possibly sent to North Korea as a suspected spy.

Mike Cash · 23 Feb 2016

thomas said:
Are you posting from a holding cell? [insert smug smilie]

I guess they asked you to send in copies of your particulars as soon as you can...

I spent the night sleeping on an uncomfortable hard surface with no pillow or blankets and have been in a small room almost all day today.

johnnyG · 23 Feb 2016

I'm trying to imagine what Mr. Fluent Experience would have said if someone had posted here that they had forgotten their wallet at home and been pulled over by the police...?

Dotanbatan · 23 Feb 2016

Mike Cash said:
I spent the night sleeping on an uncomfortable hard surface with no pillow or blankets and have been in a small room almost all day today.

What's with the cryptic messages . .. tell us what happened.

Mike Cash · 23 Feb 2016

johnnyG said:
I'm trying to imagine what Mr. Fluent Experience would have said if someone had posted here that they had forgotten their wallet at home and been pulled over by the police...?

I don't think I've ever referred to myself as "fluent", but I can still guess your gratuitous snarkiness refers to me. I'm at least that clever, anyway.

It would depend on what the person said happened.

Mike Cash · 23 Feb 2016

Dotanbatan said:
What's with the cryptic messages . .. tell us what happened.

Things have been slow around here. Just my poor attempt to liven things up.

Thanks to this marvelous high-tech era in which we live I was able to get my boss to send me a photo of the copy of my license the company keeps on file and had my wife send a photo of my gaijin card. The police copied the information from my iPad and ran their checks based on that.

They let me go with what one of the cops called something like 超スーパー厳重注意...ultra superduper warning or some such. No ticket (and consequent fine/points) for not having my license with me and absolutely none of the drama or hassle that I have always heard about from people who have written about what happened when they got caught out without their gaijin card.

I thought it was damned decent of them (especially since they were out in the cold drizzling rain for two hours) and deserving of public mention, since all we tend to hear from the foreign community are stories complaining of discriminatory or unfair treatment from the police.

Clearing up the cryptic bits:

A 45t wrecker got called in from Yokohama to drag my truck down to the Mitsubishi Fuso dealer in Shinagawa, arriving about 10 pm. I hung out in the break room and expected to spend the night, but apparently the office closes around midnight and I had to leave. They loaned me a kei van and I spent the night sleeping in the back of that. I came back here to the break room at 8:30 this morning and have been here the last eleven hours waiting for them to finish repairing my transmission. Supposed to be done pretty soon.

thomas · 23 Feb 2016

Glad it worked out for you, Mike! I guess it always depends on who you end up with. Being less fluent and/or having a different complexion/nationality etc. could have resulted in a less pleasing outcome.

Mike Cash · 23 Feb 2016

thomas said:
Glad it worked out for you, Mike! I guess it always depends on who you end up with. Being less fluent and/or having a different complexion/nationality etc. could have resulted in a less pleasing outcome.

One never knows. Still, I really have to applaud and appreciate the half-dozen or so guys who worked my breakdown last night. They were thoroughly polite, pleasant, and professional throughout every aspect of our encounter. I wouldn't have blamed them for giving me a ticket and fully expected to spend at least a few hours in a koban once we had the truck moved out of the way.

cocoichi · 23 Feb 2016

Mike Cash said:
I thought it was damned decent of them (especially since they were out in the cold drizzling rain for two hours) and deserving of public mention, since all we tend to hear from the foreign community are stories complaining of discriminatory or unfair treatment from the police.
.

I actually have nothing but good experiences with the police in Japan:

- In my student days when I spent a semester abroad in Saitama, I went to a supermarket in the evening and had nothing with me except for some yen notes. It was my first time to the supermarket, and after fifteen minutes on the way back I realized that nothing looked familiar. I was lost and had absolutely no clue where to go. I saw a police car drive by, waved to them, and when they pulled over I spoke in super crappy Japanese that I was lost. They then took me in the back of their car, let me write on a piece of paper the English name of the place where I lived, and they looked it up and drove me home. No questions and hassle about a gaijin card whatsoever.

- On another occasion I had a friend from the home country over and we decided to go out for a night. We put our drinking money in one wallet, which we lost at the end of the night. We had absolutely no money to go home, so we went to a koban. They gave us some money for the commute home. Again no questions asked, and the day after I went back there to return the money.

Maybe, just maybe, your appearance or behavior has something to do with it? If other take the time to vigorously complain about the police, I can only imagine that they might have come across as aggressive or suspicious. Who knows..

cocoichi · 23 Feb 2016

I received a notification that Lanthas replied on my comment, but I cannot see it here. Has it been removed?

To answer it: I know my situation is quite different from Mike's, I just added my positive experiences with the police to the comment "since all we tend to hear from the foreign community are stories complaining of discriminatory or unfair treatment from the police."

Mike Cash · 23 Feb 2016

lanthas said:
Getting lost or losing a wallet is something quite different from driving a truck without a driver's license.

I have a driver's license. I just didn't have it with me. Two very different things.

The former is punishable by up to three years in prison and/or up to a 500,000 yen fine.

The latter is a traffic ticket and a 3,000 yen fine.

Not having the gaijin card with me is punishable by a fine up to 200,000 yen.

Naturally, one would not expect to actually be fined 200,000 yen for having forgotten one's wallet, but it does give an idea of how seriously the offense rates compared to not having the driver's licence with me. Failure/refusal to present the card can potentially result in up to a year in prison as well.

So you can see how generous it was of them to just warn me and let me go on my way instead of doing the whole thing of going to the koban and being interrogated and writing reports and apologies.

lanthas · 24 Feb 2016

Mike Cash said:
I have a driver's license. I just didn't have it with me.

I know, that's what I meant. Doesn't matter

WonkoTheSane · 24 Feb 2016

I have had nothing but positive experiences with the police as well.

Unlike the US, if I need some help they are the first people I look for. Even something as simple as asking where the nearest post office with an ATM open might be (back before I had a Japanese bank account).

I get the impression from them that they take the concept of public servant seriously.

Of course I'm a mid 40s white male who tends to dress and act reasonably maturely, so I know my experience is not necessarily transferable to another.

mdchachi · 24 Feb 2016

cocoichi said:
I received a notification that Lanthas replied on my comment, but I cannot see it here. Has it been removed?

To answer it: I know my situation is quite different from Mike's, I just added my positive experiences with the police to the comment "since all we tend to hear from the foreign community are stories complaining of discriminatory or unfair treatment from the police."

I removed it completely because he deleted the text after he wrote it leaving it without content. Apparently he realized he had misread the post he was responding to.

nice gaijin · 24 Feb 2016

oof, sucks about the breakdown. Not surprised you were able to smooth talk your way out of fines and citations, but I do appreciate anecdotes of the police being decent to foreigners even when they could make things hard for them.

Mike Cash · 24 Feb 2016

nice gaijin said:
oof, sucks about the breakdown. Not surprised you were able to smooth talk your way out of fines and citations, but I do appreciate anecdotes of the police being decent to foreigners even when they could make things hard for them.

That's just it, though. I didn't smooth talk my way out of anything. I didn't even try to smooth talk my way out of it. I certainly hope people don't get the impression the point of the thread was to brag about having leet J-skillz and talking my way out of something. I was totally surprised when they let me know I was getting off with just a warning.

mdchachi · 24 Feb 2016

Mike Cash said:
That's just it, though. I didn't smooth talk my way out of anything. I didn't even try to smooth talk my way out of it. I certainly hope people don't get the impression the point of the thread was to brag about having leet J-skillz and talking my way out of something. I was totally surprised when they let me know I was getting off with just a warning.

Did they at least give you a 日本語上手ですね? That would be clear evidence that you were smoothly communicating if not smooth talking.

Mike Cash · 24 Feb 2016

mdchachi said:
Did they at least give you a 日本語上手ですね? That would be clear evidence that you were smoothly communicating if not smooth talking.

No mention at all was made of it.

mdchachi · 24 Feb 2016

Mike Cash said:
No mention at all was made of it.

That's bizarre. I guess you're not as fluent as we all thought you were.

Mike Cash · 24 Feb 2016

mdchachi said:
That's bizarre. I guess you're not as fluent as we all thought you were.

I'm guessing your tongue was in your cheek there. It is generally acknowledged that there is an inverse relation between proficiency and the incidence of remarks upon proficiency.

Grandpa Frank · 24 Feb 2016

Bought back memories of Rodney King , LOL.

mdchachi · 24 Feb 2016

Uncle Frank said:
View attachment 22537 Bought back memories of Rodney King , LOL.

Hmmm for some reason I don't think LOL is most people's reaction to those memories!

Dotanbatan · 24 Feb 2016

Mike Cash said:
Things have been slow around here. Just my poor attempt to liven things up.

Thanks to this marvelous high-tech era in which we live I was able to get my boss to send me a photo of the copy of my license the company keeps on file and had my wife send a photo of my gaijin card. The police copied the information from my iPad and ran their checks based on that.

They let me go with what one of the cops called something like 超スーパー厳重注意...ultra superduper warning or some such. No ticket (and consequent fine/points) for not having my license with me and absolutely none of the drama or hassle that I have always heard about from people who have written about what happened when they got caught out without their gaijin card.

I thought it was damned decent of them (especially since they were out in the cold drizzling rain for two hours) and deserving of public mention, since all we tend to hear from the foreign community are stories complaining of discriminatory or unfair treatment from the police.

Clearing up the cryptic bits:

A 45t wrecker got called in from Yokohama to drag my truck down to the Mitsubishi Fuso dealer in Shinagawa, arriving about 10 pm. I hung out in the break room and expected to spend the night, but apparently the office closes around midnight and I had to leave. They loaned me a kei van and I spent the night sleeping in the back of that. I came back here to the break room at 8:30 this morning and have been here the last eleven hours waiting for them to finish repairing my transmission. Supposed to be done pretty soon.

Of all the days to forget your wallet ! That's Murphy's law in action there.

Glad you shared your experiences though, for the same reasons you mentioned.
I have a lot of respect for the police here in Japan. There may be a lot of things wrong with criminal process and the law here, but the boys (and girls) in blue, on the front line, do a good job imo.

I Met a Lot of Policemen

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