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After 11,000 bike accidents last year, the Tokyo metropolitan government is considering new safety regulations.

For a country in which so many people get around by bicycle, Japan was surprisingly hands-off regarding regulations for the two-wheeled modes of transport for quite some time. That’s started to change, though, as a slew of new ordinances for bicycle riders have been enacted over the past two years, with things such as peddling with an open umbrella in hand or earphones in your ears now prohibited.

But even with such safety rules on the books, some 11,000 bicyclists in Tokyo still ended up in accidents last year, with 33 losing their lives. Because of this, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has appointed a committee of traffic safety experts to investigate new measures that can be enacted in an effort to curb injuries and fatalities.

Among the changes being considered are a requirement that retailers inform customers, at the time they purchase a bicycle, of the importance of following traffic safety ordinances, and also of wearing a helmet. While bicycle riders are not currently required to wear protective headgear in Tokyo, some are speculating that the committee will eventually push for helmet-use to be mandatory. This would seem to be in keeping with the recent change in traffic laws which stipulates that bicycles are now supposed to be ridden in the street (at the edge of the lane for cars) as opposed to the sidewalk, where they were ridden for decades in Japan.

The committee is expected to make its first public report sometime this summer.

Source: NHK News Web via Jin
Top image: Amazon Japan

Follow Casey on Twitter, where he’s now having flashbacks to the time he was riding his bike to the station and got hit by a car (thankfully it was a small one).