I was going down the infamous route 357 in Chiba in a customer's car which I was moving to another shop. For insurance purposes we usually use a wrecker or ask the customer to move it themselves, but the customer told me it's OK for me to drive it. The car I was driving was a heavily modified Nissan Silvia (S14). This car has a racing clutch. For those who don't know about cars, a racing clutch is very heavy compared to a stock clutch. This person installed the heaviest clutch he could find. You have to push down with a force of Godzilla just to get it down. For those wondering why he would do so, he uses this car to drift and a heavy clutch is ideal for getting the rear wheels to spin even with low revs.
A lot of our customers have heavy clutches, but this is probably the heaviest one I've ever experienced. I was at a red light and when the light turned green, I put it in gear and since I'm not used to such a heavy clutch, the clutch pushed my foot up and engaged, but I didn't give it enough gas yet so the engine stalled. I quickly started the engine again and moved forward. In the less than five seconds, it took to start the engine again and put it in gear, the guy behind me started blasting his horn. I gave a hand gesture in an apologetic manner. He then got into the next lane and pulled up next to me, so I kind of gave the same hand gesture while bowing my head a little bit. We got to the next light that was red, and he rolled down his window and started yelling at me. He accused me of looking at my phone (I wasn't) and that he's gonna call the police. I just said hai, wakarimashita which pissed him off even further. He sped up and cut me off, hit his brakes in his little Suzuki Wagon R. I was in a customer's car so I didn't want to escalate. I didn't do anything and just let him let off his steam.
At the next intersection, he actually got out of his car and walked up to my window and started yelling. I told him there's a dash cam and I will call the police. He then lowered his head to look inside the car (the car is very low to the ground). He sort of changed his tone and just told me not to look at my phone when driving. A woman got out of the car who I assumed is his daughter and she told him to stop it and get back in the car and that was that. If he touched the car, I would have called the police, but he didn't so I didn't want to deal with any of that stuff. I am saving the video of the incident just in case something comes up later where it shows he started everything.
Anyway, I thought I'd share my first road rage experience after many years of being in Japan.
by zenki32