A crisp, clear spring day at an abandoned driving school. What better way to start an urbex road trip?
I’ve probably mentioned it before, but abandoned driving schools are rather rare in Japan, because usually they are located near train stations for accessibility and come with their own practice course, which makes them rather large (in comparison to the two room driving schools I’m used to from Germany) – and therefore quite valuable, even when abandoned. In almost eleven years of exploring I only documented three abandoned driving schools and found out about two or three more.
The Hokkaido Driving School was a one stop shop. Located on a busy countryside road it featured a large but somewhat dilapidated school building as well a car repair shop and probably once a upon a time a dealership, like back in the 70s. All structures were in rather bad condition, but the school building was a real death trap that looked like it could collapse at any moment. (Which it actually did some time after my visit, so this location is at least partly demolished now.) The combination of more than a decade of abandonment and heavy snow for six months of the year were just too much… But the driving training area usually is the most interesting part of an abandoned driving school anyway – and this one was no different. It was definitely the largest one I’ve explored so far and featured plenty of way to practice parking, starting a car on a slope and just not hitting other cars. 🙂
Exploring abandoned driving schools is always fun to me – and this one wasn’t an exception. Nothing you want to spend half a day on, but there is always something to learn… and with some melon icecream from a nearby Seico Mart exploring in Hokkaido is even better! The other two abandoned driving schools I wrote about was this now completely demolished one *here* and *this one* featuring a driving simulator!
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Abandoned Kansai 
nice :). if its freely acessable and id live near this when i was like 8, i would probably spend many hours driving on the course on my bike hahaha.
they werent very common, but we actually had some “driving playgrounds” back in the day, basically a road styled course, complete with traffic signs and even traffic lights sometimes, but sized down for bikes or some kind of non powered carts…i loved these as a kid haha.
i also like that dealership, i kinda wonder what was the deal with this, as the left half of the sign lists a part of nissan line up from the 70s to early 90s, and the right side shows a trampio logo, wich was a brand of sports/racing tires yet not so long ago. you dont really see a dealerships carrying new cars and racing equipment at a same time hahaha.