Explore everyday life in Japan
Japan is a country full of bikes. I’m sure most of you are well aware of this, but do you know why this is? I can't say that I know the answer for sure, in fact, I think there are many reasons for why this is, but three main reasons that come to my mind are the heavy use of public transportation in Japan, the driving age here, and the distance students must sometimes travel to get to their high school.
Having a very reliable and heavily used public transportation system means having masses of people who must commute to transportation hubs. If you use public transportation and you happen to live a little too far away from the nearest train station or bus stop to walk there, it only makes sense that you would travel there by bike.
Another reason I think so many people in Japan ride bikes is the driving age here, which is eighteen. For Japanese nationals, once they have turned eighteen, they can begin taking driver’s education lessons. These lessons are not compulsory, but they are thought of as being necessary if you want to pass the driving test in Japan, which is very particular and has many points that a regular driver would not consider paying attention to (For example, looking under your car before getting into it, being sure to drive within thirty centimeters of the white line on the shoulder of the road, and pumping your brakes to the point where the break light in the car you will use during the driving exam flashes.).
Upon completing a driver’s education course, Japanese nationals can attempt to pass the driver’s test. However, taking these driver’s education lessons takes time and money (usually over a thousand dollars), which means that many Japanese nationals aren’t able to acquire their driver’s license until they are nineteen, twenty, or sometimes even older. This makes having a bike a cheap and convenient alternative for traveling distances that are too far to walk.
Lastly, students in Japan take rigorous high school entrance exams and then, based on the options they have available to them, choose the high school they will attend. This means students often have to travel over an hour to get to the high school they have been accepted into. This commute can involve a bike ride to the station nearest their house to catch a 6:15 AM train, a train ride to another station where another bike may be parked, and possibly another bike ride to their school. Of course, there are other ways to commute, but the point is that there are a lot of people in Japan who have a lot of reasons for owning one or more bikes, which makes for a country with a lot of bikes, and which creates the need for what you see here—bicycle parking lots.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting daily updates about life in Japan, please consider following me. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.