On a recent trip home to the U.S., I realized that Japan lacks something central to highway driving: old folks behind the wheel. Although Japan's population is aging fast, it seems like most of the old people here do not drive. I rarely see the sticker on cars that old folks must display to drive in Japan. But in the U.S., the "home of the brave," people drive well into their 70s and 80s. I had forgotten what it was like to not only have to drive behind old folks poking along the shoulder of the highway, but to actually be in the car with one.
You'd think that after 50-plus years of driving experience, the old folks would have it down. But if they're like my father, they depend on sight and memory rather than experience when driving.
This is what it's like to be in the seat next to my father, hunched over the steering wheel with his horn-rimmed glasses on, as he looks for a turn: