Hay Guyz,
Sorry to intrude. Srs Bizness ect. ...



Two attractive young (20something) Japanese female friends of mine
will be winging their way to your fair city shortly.
One of them wants to RENT A CAR, the other is not so sure.

What do you think?
Is this a good idea?
Y/N?
For starters, you drive on the wrong side of the road.
Ezactly what level of fatalities/jailtime are we looking at here?

I think they plan a side-trip to Las Vegas, but city-driving also.
I've warned them about your rush-hours ...
Any other pointers?

For example: I don't know the American traffic-signal sequence myself.
In England, amber (orange) on it's own means "Stop, if it's safe to do so".
In Japan it seems to mean "For the Love of God and all things Holy ... HURRY UP!!!"

(And btw, thanx in advance, but I believe they're sorted for accomodation.)

they should be fine...maybe they can rent a gps thingy to help them.

our signals are green..... go
yellow... get ready to stop
red.... stop

So you treat yellow like we do in England and slow down,
rather than speeding up like they do here in Japan?

I treat it that way..but a lot of LA drivers zoom thru yellow lights..and a lot of lights here don't have turn arrow signals so ..you have to turn on yellow or right when it turns red..kinds crazy if you arent used to it..I have been in 2 accidents with people in LA over turning left at a light

OK. Sounds like a bit of a mixture ...
"Take Care" would be the watchword(s) I suppose.

Also - just occurred to me - any 'No-Go' areas in the city these days?
(If this is a sensitive issue, please pm me.
I would be grateful, honest!)

I would stay away from the east LA areas and the south central areas.. they should stick to the clean nice parts of town..the valley is pretty boring also...its real easy to tell when you enter a bad area in LA... If they might want a guide for a day..I'm unemployed and have lots of free time right now and my roommate is japanese so she may be able to communicate and help alittle..hit me up if u want and I can send you my ph no.# just in case they get lost or something

Cool! TY! Might do that!

When are they coming Alice? I am hitting the UK for a while, but am happy to show 'em around and also know some local Japanese girls who might be able to help show em around.

Adam is right, I wouldnt go to ceratina parts of LA, but they are hardly tourist spots or venues, so unless they got severely lost staright out of teh airport and took teh 105 to South Central they wouldnt be hitting those areas anyway. What part of town are they staying in?

My funny "Driving in LA" story:

I used to work for Gamespy back in the day, and the guys that make the Out of the Park baseball games were coming to the USA for the first time to go to E3 and show off their game (they are German).

So I drive up to Irvine from San Diego to the Gamespy offices, pick up my boss and the 2 German guys, and we are on our way to LA. I'd never driven up to LA before (I'd only lived in San Diego for a few months), so of course I miss the exit to the Convention Center. I take the next exit, and suddenly we're smack dab in the middle of Compton. Both German guys roll down their rear windows and start hanging out of the car (I had an M3 at the time) taking picture after picture, talking excitedly in German. I asked them what they were so excited about (as I'm starting to get scared out of my mind), and the one guy goes "This is great! We've seen this in Boyz in the Hood!", like I was taking them on a set tour or something. It was then that I decided to run red lights all the way to the Convention Center.

Hahah best part of your story is when you said fuck it and ran red lights to get out of dodge.

Haha! Good story!
I wonder how many other people that's happened to?

@Carl: I think they're coming in about two weeks ... September anyway.
Don't know where they're staying.
Maybe drop you a line when I know more.

As RC said though, I'm sure they'll be fine.
After all, you must get thousands of tourists every year.
Main question is really just the driving thing.

I've never driven in Japan but coming from the midwest I know that LA driving is far more aggressive. My girlfriend gets mad because I don't go fast enough, cut off enough people and run enough red lights. She's changed man.

I was in LA and San Diego last year (I live in Mexico City) and rented a car for both. I think it was the best thing I could've done. LA is so spread apart that doing buses or subways or bike or whatever would not be sensible at all.
I did find some bad traffic, but me being for MC helped me through it.