Bicycles are a very common form of transportation in Japan. Teenagers use them as a primary means of transportation, housewives ride them to the market and back, and many salarymen ride them in between their homes and local train station as part of their daily commute. Despite their ubiquitous presence, however, most cities and towns in Japan do not have the necessary infrastructure to accommodate heavy bicycle traffic. Hardly any roads have bicycle lanes, and this forces cyclists to ride on the sidewalk, often resulting in collisions with pedestrians. There is also a noticeable lack of bicycle parking facilities, which leads to dense rows of illegally parked bicycles on sidewalks and roadsides that hinders pedestrian and even road traffic.

In response to the widespread problem of illegal bicycle parking, many local governments throughout the country have established anti-bicycle brigades, which carry out frequent raids around town to collect illegally parked and abandoned bicycles and haul them off to large storage facilities where they are held until their owners come to retrieve them.

Last Thursday I happened to witness one of these raids and snapped this photo:

I, myself, actually had my mamachari (granny bike) confiscated twice when I lived in Saitama. Both times I had to make the trip out to the pound and pay ¥1000 to get it back. But hey, the combined fines were cheaper than the ¥2500 that I would have had to pay per month for a spot at the only bicycle parking lot in the area — half-way between my apartment and the station.