Japan Top 10

For those who do not have a car in Japan, bicycles are the main means of getting around. Especially in cities.

Since getting a drivers license in Japan is fairly easy, and cars are affordable both to buy and operate, that means people who use bicycles are either very old, very young, or live in big cities where parking is more expensive than buying a car.

Children get traffic education in school, and learn that you need stop in front of railroad crossings if you ride a bicycle too, listen and look and walk your bicycle across, and then resume riding.

They also learn the proper way of crossing a crosswalk in right angles using a bicycle.

First, when you have a green light, you ride across to the stop line on the other side.

Then, stop, step off the bicycle, and turn it so you are standing on the crosswalk.

And finally, when you have a green light in the new direction, ride on.

If you wonder where the pictures come from, my son participated in the prefectural safe cycling championships.

So in school kids learn traffic safety, but with kids you know that as soon as they start playing seriously, all that grownup patina washes right off.

It is entirely different with old people. They ride slowly and majestically, like they owned the road, along the street and across it where they see fit. Serenely ignoring other traffic they ride as they like.

At least most kids have helmets. Now it is the law that you have to use them in Japan, and the police have started enforcing it. But not with old people.

There are, of course, old people who are paragons of traffic safety. But at the same time, Japan is overwhelmed by old people. Many too old to drive a car. Which means they will be on bicycles.