Upon arriving at the Kadena airport and stepping out of the terminal, I quickly noticed that something was not right; in fact, something was terribly wrong.
All the motorists were in a dire state of confusion: like glassy eyed zombies they were speeding up and down the wrong sides of the road.
I was quick to realize that these people needed help fast! I instantly sprung into action: running full speed out into dangerously fast moving chunks of metal — and at great risk to my own self, I proceeded to flag down the closest automobile.
I breathlessly informed the surprised looking driver of his grave mistake. His face briefly blanked with confusion, and then, noticing my sponsor wildly tugging on my arm, he smiled and informed me that I too would pick up his hazardous habit during my stay here.
A few days later my sponsor took me to the newcomers’ briefing. I entered the classroom expecting an in-depth driving course to take place.
I was surprised when the instructor described Japanese street signs for 20 minutes and handed me a driver’s license.
At that point I began to feel a tiny bit anxious about driving on the wrong side of the road.
After all, it is quite common for me to blindly ram into fellow motorists and a few random pedestrians while driving on the right side; I couldn’t imagine the carnage of my driving on the other side.
I tried to comprehend the cost of my insurance after a few weeks of driving. And my mind wandered to traffic tickets: It would be quite easy to mistake a triangular Japanese stop sign for an American yield sign.
The costs associated with driving mistakes here really started to worry me. I began sweating profusely. I asked my sponsor to drive me to the shoppette so that I could buy a case of beer. I have always viewed alcohol as a quick fix for any problem, and I have been classically conditioned to turn to booze when faced with hardship (real or perceived).
The very next day I purchased a well used car – cheap. I got behind the wheel, took a deep breath, and pulled out onto the road. I instantly had a large conflict between my thinking judgment and feeling judgment.
Quite simply, I felt that I was completely insane for being in the wrong lane. But after considering the high costs of running over every single car on Okinawa, my thinking judgment won.
I sat up straight and began plotting out my next move. I turned on my blinker to make a lane change and, to my surprise, my windshield wipers started flapping back and forth at an insane speed.
I quickly realized what happened and began squirted windshield washer fluid in an attempt to cover up my mistake. I noticed the Americans in the car behind me smirking knowingly.
Feeling slightly flustered, I turned on my blinker and gunned my junker into the next lane. After ten minutes of driving, I was nearing the base. In the back of my mind, I realized that I had been hearing an odd noise for the last couple minutes.
Snapping out of my driving trance, I glanced in my rearview mirror and realized that there was either an ice cream truck or an ambulance right on my tail and it was the source of the two-tone noise.
I quickly pulled over and waved the vehicle past me. I felt somewhat disturbed by my selective perception and pledged to pay more attention to what was going on around me.
Once back on Kadena, I felt much more comfortable with my driving: due to wider roads and less traffic. Feeling adventurous, I decided to try to find the Base Exchange.
After an hour of searching and asking friendly pedestrians, I finally found the B.X. Feeling quite proud of myself I pulled into the parking lot and noticed the world’s largest traffic jam near the front door. Upon farther examination, realized that today was payday, and the traffic jam was nothing more than overweight wives fighting over the expecting mothers’ parking spot.
After three hours of trying to get around the large women — sitting in their cars with their blinkers on, I decided shopping was not such a good idea. Feeling a bit daring, I decided to back up the way I came and go home.
Operant conditioning surrounded my learning experience. I continually felt that something bad could have been presented if I had made a mistake. The only real good that was obtainable was the ability to effectively drive my self around with minimal incidents.
And latent learning was obviously involved in the memorization of Japanese street signs. The ones I could remember really helped me out with my operant conditioning learning aspect; In fact, not being able to recognize the signs would have jeopardized my whole driving experience.
My first solution to enhance the learning experience is the remove the learning experience. Why not standardize driving everywhere? It would solve the problem.
In today’s modern world I can play checkers online with some guy from China. How is it that we can’t even reach an agreement on which side of the road to drive on (the right side)?
I think that the country with the most intercontinental nuclear cruise missiles should get to decide for everyone. Seriously, my driving experience was not that bad. I picked up the whole concept rather quickly. Within a week driving on the left side was nearly normal to me. I do have a few ideas that would improve the process.
I truly think that a visual aspect combined with verbal instructions would enhance the learning experience. For instance: a verbal briefing warning about the dangers of the kamikaze motorcycle riders off base would have been helpful, and maybe mentioning the three car rule (Once a stop light turns red, expect three more cars to speed though it.); however, you can only absorb so much from slideshows and videos.
The best way to learn how to drive on the wrong side of the road is to drive on the wrong side of the road.