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Bike Crimes!

Salmon on a one-way street with construction

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Ha, now we are all getting into on-bike cameras, I reckon this thread needs some real-life video evidence of the ridiculousness out there.

Perhaps we can edit the point system if people start posting videos;

-Most number of incidents over a single kilometre
-Best verbal abuse levelled at a fellow cyclist riding the wrong way up the road
-Most anger displayed on camera
-Nearest miss

Etc.

Could be very LOL.
 
Mother with child (no helmet) on rear carrier, and perhaps another in front, obviously in too high a gear. Road goes from level to slightly uphill; mother progresses in a series of ever slower and scarier zigs 30 degrees to the left and zags 30 degrees to the right, eventually stalling but luckily managing to do so with left foot on pavement/sidewalk. Now the sensible thing would be to get off and push, but no, she somehow makes a hill start. She zigs and zags around a parked lorry and I close my eyes in order not to see any encounter with a Porsche Cayenne or whatever might be barreling along in the opposite direction. No sound of tyres screaming or metal on metal so I suppose she and the kid(s) lived another day.

I was a pedestrian at the time but if I'd been a cop I'd have run after her (easy to do!) and given her a lecture.

Well, no, if I'd been a cop I'd more likely have asked about the place of her husband's employment, murmured appreciatively when hearing it, and sent her on her way with the mildest of suggestions to buy and wear helmets (but not to change style of riding).
 
obviously in too high a gear.

Gears, what gears?

Have you ever noticed how cars with manual transmissions in Japan often seem to rattle the engine when going round a slow corner, as the RPMs drop too low for it to run smoothly and drivers can't be bothered to downshift into a more appropriate gear before the turn. So it's not only mamachari.
 
Riding to work this morning on a one way,tree lined street.
Just in front of me the salaryman using his phone swerves to miss a parked car at the last moment. He misses the car but not the salaryman coming in the opposite direction... Also concentrating on his keitai screen.
One of them banged his head pretty good!
I nearly stopped to offer assistance....
 
Riding to work this morning on a one way,tree lined street.
Just in front of me the salaryman using his phone swerves to miss a parked car at the last moment. He misses the car but not the salaryman coming in the opposite direction... Also concentrating on his keitai screen.
One of them banged his head pretty good!
I nearly stopped to offer assistance....

What..... no picture :eek:
 
I nearly stopped to offer assistance....
:warau::warau:

Lately I see so many people, especially kids, riding along with headphones in texting.

Then there was the kid the other day riding along at high speed eating an onigiri. Clearly late for soccer practice. crosses the street hits the sidewalk ramp and his momentum carried him over the handlebars headfirst into the pavement. He hadn't even looked up the street he had just crossed.
 
The cool thing about Tokyo is there is high enough population density to catch all this in action. Where I grew up in the country the most exciting 'fail' was a tree falling in the forest. Generally the one you had just hit.
 
Regarding the "salmon" comments, I feel I should point out -- in case some readers are not aware -- that it most cases it is permissible to ride a bicycle against traffic on a one-way street; there are usually signs at the 'wrong' end indicating no entry except for bicycles, and/or along the street indicating one way except for bicycles.

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I'm not saying that I think it's safe or sensible. I think that depends. But it's not illegal.

Ninja Stylee is, of course, extremely common, irresponsible and inexcusable when most of these bikes have a dynamo light.
 
I understood the 'salmon' comments to be about riding against traffic in your lane, i.e. on the extreme right of the road. I hate those extreme rightists!
 
At least one cyclist who is not texting! ;)
 
I shall add a few recent sights, after nearly getting caught out by a ninja warrior last night.

Case 1: Kid riding with her dad (I presume). She was standing (I ran round the corner to check my eyes hadn`t mistaken me) on the rear mudguard. Not straight, as obviously that would be pretty hard, but sideways on and holding onto her dad`s back.

Case 2: Like above, but kid standing on saddle behind their dad (again, assumptions) with arms round the neck.

Case 3: Classic with old man on sidewalk sticking hand in air and without looking going straight across the main road. He might have looked before I caught sight of him, but he had a hat with neck cover, so unlikely he could have turned round. Normally I would joke, but some guy got killed last month (same man???) a few miles away, apparently, doing the same thing across the ring road. Worst part is, there are crossings in both cases at most 50m away.

Case 4: Not cycling but twice recently seen grandparents riding scooters with their grandkid standing in the footwell (?) between their granddad`s arms.
 
This initially worried me. I've been assured by my police* contact that offenses committed while cycling would have no affect on driving license status. But this case seems to be a one-off - I imagine they considered him on wheels a menace to society... for 150 days.

* And they always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help them Godzilla.
 
Saw a cyclist today on R246 who obviously couldn't afford a pair of gloves against the cold - he used his jacket pockets to keep his hands warm. He was doing quite well passing the parked cars in the first lane without colliding with the faster cars, trucks and buses in the second lane.

He also wore headphones (big DJ style ones), so "look mom, no hands" must be not only a skilled cyclist but also a music lover. Either that, or it was his original way of keeping his ears warm.

But I'll give him one thing, at least that was one cyclist who wasn't texting.

Sorry, no photographic evidence, as I didn't want to become the runner up for "Idiot Cyclist of the Day" by trying to take a one handed shot of the prize winner while passing him there on 246. One of these days I'll get a GoPro or something similar...
 
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