As an American, I have a strong affinity for driving. In the U.S., we owned 3 cars for 2 drivers. In Japan, we do not own a car. In Japan, I ride my bike most places or take public transportation. In the U.S., the plan was that our son would take driver’s education and I would give him supplemental lessons. We were also planning on giving him my car. The legal driving age in Japan is 18, and in California it is 16, so there are a lot of differences in how we had to go about it. What I was not prepared for was the difference in cost. Because we do not own a car and do not ourselves have driver’s licenses, we had to pay for him to go to driving school. The driving course took about 10 weeks and 3,000 USD for the full course. He did pass the driving test the first time. His instructor spoke English a bit and the written materials were in English. The school did a good job of teaching him a bit of car maintenance as well as how to drive.
He was still very much a new driver at the end of the course. So, for me, this meant giving him supplemental lessons so that he could feel comfortable driving on the toll roads and expressways. I also wanted him to get practice driving longer distances. Because I do not have my license or a car, we had to pay for supplemental lessons, which cost us another $1000 paid out in installations of $100. After we did that, I also rented cars for him to practice driving and parking. Now, he is a very good driver and excellent at parking. I trust him to drive safely with friends in the car and all of that. It was still about 3 times more expensive than I had envisioned for teaching him to drive. I am sure they are cheaper ways we could have done it, but a major obstacle is that Chad and I do not have a driver’s license or car. Throughout the whole experience, I was very homesick and a bit sad for the experience that I lost. Teaching him to drive was something I had dreamt about his whole life. I was able to capture it a bit by being the one who helped him refine his skills and practice. Still, it wasn’t quite the same. Sometimes being in Japan is hard. Sometimes this choice costs me.