It’s a more serious crime than you may think.

You don’t hear much about DUI charges involving bicycles, but despite not being as potentially destructive as their motorized counterparts, bicycles are moving at fast enough speeds to cause serious injury. Perhaps it’s just because the police’s attention tends to be on other matters that drunk cyclists manage to slip under the radar unless they’re doing something really conspicuous.

This brings us to 21 May, when a 38-year-old woman was arrested for drunk bicycle riding while riding down Fukuoka City’s Rocket Park St., which, despite its dynamic name, is a fairly quiet residential area.

▼ Rocket Park St.

At about 10:30 p.m. on the same day, the woman was spotted by an officer in a patrol car riding her bike while vomiting at the same time. Seeing that and worried about her physical condition, the officer called out to her to offer assistance.

Her reaction was to flee the scene on her bicycle so the officer gave chase and after stopping her administered a breathalyzer test. Found to have a blood alcohol level about four times the legal limit, she was immediately arrested. At first, she denied the charge, but perhaps after sobering up later on, she confessed that she was on her way home after drinking beer at an izakaya. Police are currently investigating how much beer that was.

Many of the readers of the news online were so unaccustomed to hearing about someone getting caught drunk bicycling, they wondered what would happen to this woman.

“Getting caught drunk cycling is some advanced drunkenness.”
“If she’d only just stopped her bike and went into the trees to throw up, she’d be just another drunk person.”
“I’m a little impressed she can ride a bike while vomiting.”
“Does this affect her driver’s license if she has one?”
“The penalties for even operating light vehicles drunk are severe. Just don’t do it.”
“All she had to do was get off the bike and walk, but I guess she was too drunk to even think of that.”
“Can you imagine the smell?”
“I wonder if it was erupting like the Merlion.”
“What is the penalty for this? Fine? A ticket?”

I was wondering about that last one myself, so let’s take a look. According to Japanese law, anyone found operating a bicycle while demonstrably too intoxicated to do so, regardless of their blood alcohol level, is subject to a prison sentence of up to five years and/or a fine of up to one million yen (US$7,000). The fact that she was puking while riding would probably satisfy the condition of being “too intoxicated” in this instance.

Often if the person shows remorse and is a first-time offender, there’s a fair chance this will end up as a suspended sentence, allowing her to go free as long as she doesn’t do it again. However, an interesting caveat to this law is that many accessory charges apply much like they do with drunk driving. For example, if the izakaya was found to have served her alcohol with the knowledge that she would use a bike afterward, they are also liable and could face penalties of up to three months in prison or a maximum fine of 500,000 yen.

▼ “Excuse me, sir. I’m required to ask if you will be operating a bicycle before serving you.”

And as we reported earlier, laws regarding drinking and biking recently got even stricter. A revision to the Road Traffic Act made “cycling under the influence” a crime punishable by up to three years in prison or a maximum fine of 500,000 yen. To be charged with this, one only needs to be caught riding a bicycle with a breath alcohol content of 0.15 mg/L or more, roughly equivalent to less than an hour after a single beer for an adult male.

Needless to say, Japan does not play at all when it comes to drinking and bicycling. Even though arrests for it seem to be rare, they do happen and you do not want to be on the receiving end of these charges, so just play it safe and stumble home on your feet like an honorable, law-abiding drunk.

Source: Fukuoka TNC News, Itai News, Kyodo News, Japanese Visa/Naturalization Application Support, Asahi Shimbun
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert image: Pakutaso
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