Quote Originally Posted by senseiman
I'm kind of surprised, but at the same time I had kind of figured something like that must be the case. An ambulance with its sirens blaring and lights flashing is pretty much a daily occurence in my neighborhood, yet I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually have an accident or anything.
Same for me in Tokyo. I did see one or two real accident, but no match to the ambulance passing everyday or twice a day. On the other hand, it could be people having a heart attack inside a building or something else we can't see from outside.

But I was thinking "Well, my life isn't in danger and the bone isn't sticking through the skin or anything, so maybe I don't really need an ambulance. If there was a serious accident somewhere and the ambulance couldn't respond because they were taking me to hospital I would feel terrible."
I thought exactly like you before reading the article. I wouldn't bother calling an ambulance even for a broken arm, etc. if it was not an emergency (i.e. something life-threatening) But now that I know I live in a country of selfish and stingy people...

Quote Originally Posted by Kamisama
I wonder if traffic in japan gets so bad sometimes, that you have to call an ambulance to get you to an area because you can't get there in a day. Or perhaps the stress of traffic would bring the woman to labor earlier.
No, nothing like that. I found that there were relatively few traffic jams in Tokyo compared to the average European cities, probably because roads are much wider (4 lanes in each direction, against 1 in normal European cities).
Anyway, car drivers usually step aside to let the ambulance through, and it's quite easy again because of the wide roads. Even with a car on each of the 4 lanes, there is more empty space in total (between each of the 4 cars) than there would be on a 1 lane street, where stepping on the pavement is the only solution, and sometime not enough. I have in fact never seen an ambulance having troubles making its way through the traffic in Tokyo.