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Absolutely. In Japan most bicycles are left unlocked. You can leave your cellphone to hold your seat in a coffee shop. Things you lose get returned. My father l
by paulsutter 8y ago
Absolutely. In Japan most bicycles are left unlocked. You can leave your cellphone to hold your seat in a coffee shop. Things you lose get returned. My father lost his passport there and when he called, the embassy already had it.
- titanix2 8y agoNo they’re not. Most bicycles are locked by the device that is builtin. Also bike registration exists for a reason: bike stealing is one of the most common crimes.
- paulsutter 8y agoI lived there so I’ve seen it. Bikes are usually locked in the neighborhoods with a lot of foreigners (Roppongi, etc), but in most of Japan they aren’t. I’ve seen hundreds of bikes parked outside work without a single lock.
- kalleboo 8y agoI live in a more rural part of Japan where you can count the foreigners on your two hands and I find it hard to believe you can even see how many bikes have their ubiquitous ring locks[0] locked among hundreds of bikes [0] https://i.stack.imgur.com/kPKjx.jpg https://i.stack.imgur.com/kPKjx.jpg
- nihonde 8y agoI never lock my bike. I know bike theft happens a few times per month because it is the only crime ever mentioned in our kairanban (a kind of neighborhood newsletter). My impression is that only high-end road/mountain bikes or very nice mamachari would be targeted. The easy solution is to ride a $200 Chinese bike and experience the tremendous freedom of taking on the extremely low risk. My local grocery store/mall has literally a thousand bikes parked at any time, and I would say about half don’t even bother with the built-in rear wheel lock.