Fender Bender

Traffic rules go a little differently in Japan. They drive on the wrong side of the road, there are less police enforcing proper driving etiquette and it just seems like they care a whole lot less in general.

The ones who do care are the citizens. Not that they really care about their driving or that pedestrian about to cross the road or anything. They could care less about that. They care about their cars and their appearance. I am not sure if this is what comes from being a country devoted to the make and drafting of cars so early on, or perhaps it is the fact that not everyone owns one, let alone more than one per family. Either way, they take impeccable care of their cars. I am not just talking about cleaning either. You will be hard pressed to find a car with dents or scratches on it. This goes doubly for taxis.
Once upon a time a taxi hit me on my bicycle (this was a long time ago) on one of the many back roads behind Kyoto buildings. Nothing was wrong, there were no dents or bruises. Perhaps just a little hurt pride of the taxi driver. After all he had to report it. And call the cops. And persistently insist that I must see a doctor. Well the reports and the cops were unavoidable, but I promise you I did not go to a hospital for such a silly thing. Pretty much taxis are obligated to do procedures as such because they then have to report it to their company and if there was any damages, they need to be notified right away with a report filed so that their cars and reputations will remain in tact.
To maintain such public face, they get their cars in the repair shops stat and get any dents and dings hammered and polished out. It is the same with most people in Japan. You will not find many cars with dents or scratches on them, I would almost say that you would have a better chance of finding the lucky taxi. It is actually quite the same in Korea. Once I witnessed an accident go down and my car insurance friend showed up to work out the details and later explained it to me that fault doesn't matter as much into it as they will both pay a bit for the others repairs. One will obviously pay more...Anyways, he is called immediately even late at night to the scene so that they can get the car to the repair shop immediately.
It seems odd to me since in it was a bit of the opposite as in America. People would get in a fender bender and then decide that it was only aesthetic and then just leave it for months of years at a time. I can promise you my family still has that one car that has the giant scratch from where Jeff backed into the mailbox when he first started driving. Yup. Never fixed that one.