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Within a month or so of purchasing a used bicycle in Tokyo, I had been stopped more than 5 times by police. I guess the sight of a foreign guy on the cheapest b

by kintle 9y ago

Within a month or so of purchasing a used bicycle in Tokyo, I had been stopped more than 5 times by police. I guess the sight of a foreign guy on the cheapest bike I could find screams police magnet. It was cute at first and I was super polite and it would end quickly, but after a couple that resulted in patdowns, searches, and 20+ minutes answering questions about my presence in the country, I now make an effort to ride past the police if they're around. It's also made me more aware of the need to be a bit more cautious as a foreigner here than I thought

patio11 9y ago
I had been wondering whether it was just Tokyo being more cosmopolitan but I'm now wondering if the reason for less adversarial encounters is simply that I haven't purchased a bike since leaving Ogaki. (If this sounds dumbfounding to folks with less context: bicycle theft is near the top of police priorities and they have the impression that foreigners are the primary cause of it. "Suspicion of stealing my own bicycle" has historically been the most common thing which attracted me adversarial attention.)
- fenomas 9y ago
  I had the same feeling. Personally I've only been stopped by police once (randomly, to show the gaijin card) in 15+ years, and similar is true of most of my friends. But I've occasionally met people who talked about getting stopped a lot, and they've all been people who biked in the city.
  - kalleboo 9y ago
    Certainly to a degree it depends on the police district - here I've only been stopped once and they were stopping everyone randomly due to some incident nearby. I initially gave them my residence card but they didn't know what to do with it and were a lot happier to see my driver's license. My bike wasn't even anti-theft-registered (which is required here as anywhere else) but they didn't seem to care and just noted the frame number without a comment.
adrianN 9y ago
I rode around on the cheapest bike I could find for several months in Tokyo and was never stopped. Maybe you look particularly suspicious?

by kintle 9y ago

patio11 9y ago

I had been wondering whether it was just Tokyo being more cosmopolitan but I'm now wondering if the reason for less adversarial encounters is simply that I haven't purchased a bike since leaving Ogaki. (If this sounds dumbfounding to folks with less context: bicycle theft is near the top of police priorities and they have the impression that foreigners are the primary cause of it. "Suspicion of stealing my own bicycle" has historically been the most common thing which attracted me adversarial attention.)

fenomas 9y ago
I had the same feeling. Personally I've only been stopped by police once (randomly, to show the gaijin card) in 15+ years, and similar is true of most of my friends. But I've occasionally met people who talked about getting stopped a lot, and they've all been people who biked in the city.
- kalleboo 9y ago
  Certainly to a degree it depends on the police district - here I've only been stopped once and they were stopping everyone randomly due to some incident nearby. I initially gave them my residence card but they didn't know what to do with it and were a lot happier to see my driver's license. My bike wasn't even anti-theft-registered (which is required here as anywhere else) but they didn't seem to care and just noted the frame number without a comment.

adrianN 9y ago

I rode around on the cheapest bike I could find for several months in Tokyo and was never stopped. Maybe you look particularly suspicious?