Back on July 3, 2011, a 15-year-old high school girl became the first person in Japan to be fined for using a cell phone while operating a bicycle.
This is good on a couple of levels: she can now concentrate all of her attention on looking where she is going and can better watch out for Japan's wacky drivers who tend to be more interested in bowing to the driver of every car they pass rather than the actual rules of the road.
Regardless... the unnamed girl (she is 15!) was given a ticket under a Kanagawa Prefectural government ordinance that began on May 1, 2011 that makes it illegal for cyclists to engage in dangerous activities while riding, like using a cell phone or listening to music through headphones (how can you hear emergency vehicles or cars honking at you as you swerve all over the road while trying to keep the beat to Shonen Knife - an awesome band - you just can't!).
A police officer using a megaphone ordered the schoolgirl four times to stop looking at her phone as she rode through the streets of Hiratsuka-shi (Hiratsuka City) in Kanegawa-ken (Kanegawa Prefecture), but she ignored him (perhaps she also had headphones on), so he stopped her and gave the teen a ticket.
The girl faces a fine of up to ¥50,000 yen (~ Cdn/US $650), pretty much admitted complete ignorance of the new law when she told police: “I thought I’d be all right if I was only riding a bicycle.”
Bakayaro! (Stupid idiot!) That's the crux of the law! Dangerous stuff on a bicycle.
On the downside, it also means that had this law been in effect back when I was still living in Japan, and had I been living in Kanegawa-ken, I could have been fined for doing wheelies, carrying excessive amounts of gaijin groceries, doubling my girlfriend, having sex with my girlfriend... yes, it is possible to have sex on a bicycle... but owing to the intense amount of pumping involved, it does tire one out.
Oh... and look at the photo above... does riding a bicycle with an umbrella look dangerous? Aside from the possibility it slightly obscures ones vision, or that the wind could destabilize you, your humble author (the world's most humble author) was schmucked by a car while he used an umbrella to keep the typhoon from soaking him more than he was already soaked.
While I did know the 100-kilometer-an-hour winds could take the umbrella away from me and toss me into a rice field in Oz, I never had a problem with it (he's so big and strong). I was hit because a Japanese driver in a white car decided his car had the right-of-way at a three-way stop - regardless if the bicycle rider had already stopped and was more than half-way across the street. Idiot. While I went over his hood and lay unmoving (on purpose) on the puddle-filled road, I waited about 30 seconds while he slowly looked for an umbrella in his car before venturing to see if he had killed the local gaijin (foreigner) in Ohtawara-shi, Tochigi-ken.
Unfortunately, he didn't.
So... Japan - It's A Wonderful Rife is now sure of its opinion, and applauds the new law that saves lives so the bicycle rider can better protect themselves from the bad drivers of Japan.
Files by Andrew Joseph
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