philip964 wrote: The Japanese as a culture are very law abiding. They have a 55 mile per hour speed limit and everyone obeys it to the letter.
When I lived in Japan in the late 80's to early 90's, you would see cars parked in "no parking" areas running with keys in it and unlocked while people would run in the store to pick up items. Had they turned the car off, they would have broken the law, but since it was running, they were only "stopped" not parked in the no parking zone. Shop keepers wouldn't even come out of the back room unless you called to them for assistance or when you were ready to make your purchace, they had no fear of people shoplifting or stealing things.