I love it! You always have the most insightful posts about this kind of thing.
I think you're right about the beads-- but he has the envelope things two. It's quite a menagery. My father in law knows his roads in this small area, but straying even ever so slightly makes his driving quite scary... so I think in his case it's to prevent him from hitting other people (although I'll take your word on thatit is to prevent other people from hitting him
).
The shrine I drove through was definitely not the one you posted. It was definitely not famous either. I have quite a small car, and I BARELY managed to drive through the road that led to it. It was quite funny looking back... there was no warning. It was like a road that eventually just got smaller and smaller (with lots of curves) until there was literally no backing out. It was one of those moments when you wish you had a video camera to show your friends later on.
"Something it makes me think of is children being told that their toys will get angry and run away if they don`t treat them well."
I feel like I have heard that before in a classor something a long time ago. To me, it's all just a superstition, but the fact that it has the idea of respect flowing through it makes me a believer in that sense. It seems logical if you think about it that way-- if you treat things nicely (animate and inanimate things) then things usually work out. If you go slamming your super nintendo controller on the ground when you lose a game, then it might break. Anything that's lasted 400 years (or a long time given the thing) like those old trees is something that we can all learn from.