This Japanese taxi company is starting a trial run of asking you to not talk to its driver. That means no small talk.

Some people love small talk while a good number of people would rather much enjoy being still with little talk as possible. According to our motoring friends in Japan at Rocket News 24 on their piece earlier today (Apr. 6,2017) at least a couple of taxi passengers park themselves in the later camp of enjoying their ride and engaging in as little small talk as possible. Not only do they not wish to not talk to drivers, this taxi company totally agrees with their wishes and has implemented a trial run of taxis where no talking is the rule rather than the suggestion. Introverts rejoice!

Miyako Taxi has dubbed the service, of course, translated into English, the Silence Taxi service. The rule of thumb is that if you want to start a conversation with the Taxi driver, you may, but don’t expect the Taxi driver to start up a conversation. Normally if the taxi driver sees that you are a tourist or just new to the city he may regale you with an explanation of what you’re driving giving a sort of guided tour. Politeness is the norm and the Japanese people are friendly when it comes to going out of their way to make sure a foreigner feels at home in their country.

However, this trial run takes the edge off of having to keep a conversation going. Whereas silence can be seen as a sign of disrespect in some countries, in this particular instance silence is expected and respected. Currently, there are five of these taxis running around Japan and Miyako Taxi service is seeing how everything pans out. We have a feeling this will be a very popular service.

Oftentimes when news like this shows up it’s all too easy to reference Mia from Pulp Fiction who infamously quoted this line

Mia: Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it’s necessary to yak about b.s. in order to be comfortable?
Vincent: I don’t know. That’s a good question.
Mia: That’s when you know you’ve found somebody special. When you can just shut the f— up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence.

In a world dominated by noise, it’s ok to enjoy the silence and not feel awkward about it. Kudos to you Miyako Taxi service.

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