Regarding the July 19 Views From the Street (Kamakura, Kanagawa) question, "Is it better to own a car or not in Japan?": For all of those people living in the bigger cities like Tokyo, it's nice to have the option of owning a car or not. Here in the countryside, if we don't have a car, we can't even get to work!
And because the politicians — who think Tokyo is the real Japan — still consider a car a luxury, we poor country bumpkins pay the same extravagant yearly taxes and biennial inspection taxes for owning a vehicle to go to work . We then get taxed again for gasoline, and on and on it goes.
So, this question is moot for those of us in the rest of Japan.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.
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