The dogged perseverance of Japan's millions of commuters to spend untold percentages of their lives on trains every day, is matched only by the ability to remain so completely soporific, as they carve out their own psychological personal space while squashed for hours into the most claustrophobic and cramped conditions each morning and night. As a driver, I ride the trains infrequently, and as a result when I do - ostensibly in off-peak hours whenever possible - I can barely wait to escape from their weary winding through the underground tunnels of the Tokyo metropolis.