Tokyo to repaint streets over rule that makes it impossible for cars to pass bicycles

Some rules are meant to be broken .

A few months back, Japan made some sweeping changes to bicycle laws, introducing the notorious “ blue tickets ” for infractions such as riding too fast on a sidewalk, riding with an umbrella, or riding while using a smartphone.

The laws came into effect along with a fairly large crackdown on such behavior by police departments across the country.

And for a while it worked.

People by and large traded in their umbrellas for raincoats.

However, once the full force of the summer sun kicked in and after a few torrential rainstorms, many people decided to hell with it and started using umbrellas again.

The problem with that is these same cyclists are still adhering to the no-sidewalk rule, which means drivers now have to put up with these slow-moving vehicles that are sometimes up to over a meter wide.

Quite a few roads do have bicycle lanes to accommodate this, but they’re pretty absurd in practice.

Cars and trucks often park right in them, mopeds frequently make them their own personal passing lane, and the bike lanes often just don’t fit.

Especially in major cities, there are a lot of roads that are literally ancient and can’t be expanded due to the dense buildings along them. ▼ An all-too-common scene: A cyclist going around a car parked in the bike lane while another car goes extra wide to overtake the bicycle at the same time.

To make matters worse, traffic rules dictate that cars must give at least one meter (three feet) of distance when passing a bike.

At the same time, if the road has a yellow center line, then you must never cross over it , so there are many instances where a car might be legally unable to pass a bicycle.

You’re technically not even allowed to honk your horn at them to move over, because that is also a violation known as “abuse of the horn.” Of course, in reality, when faced with this situation, most cars would just go over the yellow line to pass anyway.

I’d also like to think that any cop would consider that to be the most reasonable course of action and let it slide despite it being a violation.