• Contact
• About
• Archives
• Home

It was such a beautiful day on Thursday so the Boy dragged me away from the computer and we rode to Jiyugaoka to check out the shopping scene there. By the time we got home though I was a nervous wreck.

Incident #1 - the Female Suicidal Pedestrian #1
On the way, just a few streets from our apartment a woman looking through her handbag stepped out from the side after the truck in front of us without looking and therefore not seeing us bearing down upon her. There were three choices in the spilt second before we would collide with her - swerve left and possibly skid into the power line pole, swerve right into possible oncoming traffic or slam the brakes and hope we didn’t skid into her. The Boy choose self preservation and fortunately the Majesty’s braking system is so good and the road was nice and dry. Thankfully we didn’t hit her, but I have bruised wrists from gripping on, the back of the bike lifting up and coming down again with the sudden stop made them bang against the holding-on bit twice.

Incident #2 - the Male Suicidal Pedestrian
Just a little bit further down the road a man, who was possibly not playing with a full deck of cards, walked slowly right down the middle of the road thru an intersection. We were not the only vehicle that had to swerve.

Incident #3 - the Indecisive Taxi Driver
It was dark on the way home, but the Majesty is lit up like a Christmas tree. The Boy and I have somehow pondered about whether some taxi drivers do deliberately harrass people on bikes. This taxi driver keep swapping from the left lane into the right for no apparent reason except that we were in the right lane behind another vehicle. He seemed determined not to let us pass. He came close enough several times that I would have been able to touch the actual taxi.

Incident #4 - the Female Suicidal Pedestrian #2
You are wearing all black clothing. It’s dark and you are walking down a smallish backstreet. You see lights coming from behind you. Do you continue to walk at a snails pace down the middle of the road? Not unless you have good health insurance I suspect.

And these were just the main incidents. Most of the shoppers in Jiyugaoka just wandered all over the roads. Car brakes squealed often. Trucks tried to merge into cars (and us) instead of waiting for 2 seconds until everything was clear. A few people opened car doors without bothering to check if anything was coming (this pisses me off as a cyclist too). Cyclists at night can’t be bothered turning on a light, forgetting that even though they can see they may be hard to see (I’m getting quite a reputation between here and Nakano for yelling at other cyclists to turn their bloody light on).

In this way it really does become like a video game. Who can get there the fastest, avoid the most damage and not wipe out any pedestrians! Full on adrenaline rush! Test your reflexes and reaction time!

I actually really like riding on the back of the Majesty. Especially on a warm sunny day. But it’s much better when there are no other vehicles around. The Boy is actually pretty good at riding and remains calm and collected. It’s me who does all the rude signs and shouts at people. Days like this really make me reassess whether I get my scooter license though. I’m not sure whether I can be as calm and collected.

• I love bicycles. I must have one when I get to Tokyo

  Meenoo
  03/05/30 02:07 PM

• This sort of game-like stress is why I cannot ride around on teh streets of Tokyo. I am an inveterate walker. Feet to the ground, thank you!

  Kuri
  03/05/30 06:20 PM

• Im with you Kuri!  Im dangerous enough as it is!

  j-ster
  03/05/31 12:39 AM

• I have my moped licence here in the Netherlands and I am now looking hard for a nice old Vespa.  I am very excited about it, but I know that I’ll be riding very gingerly for quite some time.

  Shaun
  03/05/31 03:52 PM

• I live in Copenhagen, Denmark. Here you *will* get a fine if a police officer sees you without your light on… well, maybe you could talk them out of it, but still. On the more fortunate side, only the tourists walk in the bicycle lane (yes, there are bike lanes)!

  Anja
  03/06/01 02:51 PM

• Actually I saw a policeman here once actually tell someone off - but it goes beyond the police needing to do that - I’m naive enough to believe that people should use their own common sense!

  Ah bike lanes, a luxury we can only dream of when most streets in Japan don’t even have a foot path…

  gomichild
  03/06/01 05:57 PM

• Yargh. About pedestrians, they usually know the law, consciously or unconsciously: any vehicle that hits them is always responsible, no matter what. According to Japanese law, as a pedestrian, even if you hide behind a wall and then leap out in front of a truck, even if the driver is driving ultra-slow, brakes immediately and can’t help hitting you—by law, the driver is still at fault. That’s what gives pedestrians the nerve to do what they do; they know drivers have to watch out for them and not the other way around.

  As for taxi drivers, they have several habits that tick me off, as a scooter rider. First, they will suddenly pull over for a fare without looking at who’s behind them, or in their blind spot, without signaling—I am *always* nervous around those things. But second, what you mentioned—the lane-changing—that’s also a common habit. You see, they want to be in the faster right lane to get up speed, but also want to have the left lane so they can stop to pick up fares. When they have a fare, they want the faster lane again, but also know their fare could ask for an instant course change. So they try to control both lanes. I don’t know how many times I have seen them at this, often just driving over the divider, and you never know which way they’ll swerve next.

  And though you see bikers pulled over by traffic cops for tickets all the time, I have *never* seen a taxi pulled over. Not once.

  Luis
  03/06/16 03:03 AM

• Ever been hit by a taxi? One cut my ass off while swerving over to the curb to pick up a customer. I luckily hit the backend of the car, not the quick turning front, and managed to stay on the scooter.  I wasnt hurt at all, but more pissed off at the guy, and all my shouting and angry faces earned me a 10,000 yen bill…

  Chris
  03/06/23 01:49 AM

• I prefer riding a bike over walking it’s so much faster, and in my opinion, very relaxing.

  bicycles
  03/10/19 07:20 PM