Tokyo's Attitude To Cars | Jeremy Clarkson's Motorworld | Top Gear

this is Tokyo's traffic control center where people sit and look at that huge bored and despair man II already know the expression give me a break the idea is that accidents and holdup points are monitored on a vast array of cameras positioned seemingly everywhere when the traffic's getting sticky the information is fed to drivers via huge boards located above every major route around the city orange means you're screwed red means that you should have remembered a good book a razor and some new software via in-car entertainment console to keep foreseeable disruptions to a minimum most roadworks are done at night and we're not talking about one man and a pic either the team employed here borrowed its lights from Pink Floyd and was so enormous it could have thrown up a couple of pyramids before summer parking - is something else we have Alton Towers Paris has Euro Disney Japan has its multi-storey car parks turntables get you pointing in the right direction then you drive into what can only be described as a big vending machine remembering to get out of your car before it's whisked away the chap in the Porsche had been there for a week they've got on street parking pretty sussed out to the meters have infrared sensors so if you come back and feed them every hour they know you haven't moved your car if you park illegally you get clamped which in Tokyo means you get one of these on your door mirror and the shame of driving around with a yellow tag fluttering in the slipstream means most drivers will pay the fine and have it removed before driving off something tells me it's a system that wouldn't work terribly well in Britain though that's not to say that cars don't get towed in Tokyo they do by teams who redefine the concept of efficiency thirty seconds and it's gone idea if you drive a car like that he deserved having towed away but you're saying what's so different about the system in Tokyo I mean let's face it they're tow cars away all over the world well I'll tell you what's different about the system here this is so the guy comes back there's his number plate that says Shinjuku police department and that is where it's been towed to now he's got to go off and spend the best part of half a day getting it back it's gonna cost him a hundred and eighty pounds but it was a works van all right now that means the owner of the company that sent him here is looking at a thousand pound fine if the chalk gets washed away one has to presume he's also looking at the world's harvest ever game of hide-and-seek you

Channel: Top Gear

Views: 7,383,341

Keywords: BBC, BBC Worldwide, car, auto, vehicle, motor, travel, free, video, Jeremy Clarkson, Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson's Motorworld, drive, speed, awesome

Id: 0fjRPMW_7K4

Length: 3min 12sec (192 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 16 2008

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

*90s

Source: There's an R32 GT-R there.

[u/TheVloginator]

Came for the mullet, stayed for the interesting Japanese efficiency.

[u/[deleted]]

There's another interesting part of this episode where he's talking about cheesy Japanese car accessories: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eDz1EkIB0Q

Also golden: the Vietnam episode where he rides a scooter, contrary to his complete and apparent ignorance of them on the Top Gear special.