Traffic Ticket ^^;

It's a fishy situation, let me explain.

We had an ALT event at one of the elementary schools. Apparently, 200 meters of road in front of the school is one way for one hour in the morning. 4 cars carrying ALTs (mine being one of them), all driving separately, got pulled over and we all got tickets. NONE of us saw any signs- 4 cars, none of us saw any signs (2 drivers are Japanese). That's weird right? Then, we told the principal at the school and said at the schools entrance ceremony in April, 20 parents got tickets for the same violation. He kindly called the police station to see if he could do anything about the tickets but they told him HE should have told us about the rule.

After school we went back to the intersection to look for the mysterious sign. This is the intersection where it is prohibited to turn right for one hour a day. Do you see any signs? There are signs, but you can only see them from the other direction, heading straight onto the road. There is one sign that is supposed to be for people coming from my side, but it's not visible. So, we went to the police station and complained to the deputy chief. First, he said we should learn the Japanese rules of driving. I pointed out that I have a Japanese drivers license and two Japanese people got tickets. We strongly expressed our concerns about the police telling the principal it was his responsibility to tell us, when in fact, it's the city's responsibility to tell the drivers. It's fishy that so many people get tickets, and they clearly know that so many people get tickets because they station traffic cops there, yet it never occurred to them that the signs might not be well displayed. I also heard that all money from traffic violation tickets goes to funding this big sports event in Nagasaki next year.

A teacher at my school told me she also got a ticket there because she had not seen the sign. I told her to complain to the police. I bet a lot of other people have gotten tickets and paid it without voicing the lack of signs. Maybe if more people complain, they'll fix the signage. It's better to come from Japanese people than the foreigners who "don't know the Japanese rules."

The whole situation made me angry. In the end, I paid because going to court would most likely just end in me having to pay more money.