00:00:01 John Daub: Welcome to Tokyo. It is a beautiful sunny day, Sunday, and just a couple of days ago, Japan had some police on the road, in particular in Osaka, in the cities, all over the place. But in the national news, they were showing Osaka the most. Seems like they might have the most of these crimes. But there's been an increase of smartphone users on bicycles and an increase in accidents. And you can see I've stopped my bicycle to do the live stream. You're not actually allowed ride a bicycle with a smartphone. And this is like common sense sort of stuff.

00:00:34 John Daub: But Japan has been debating this for quite a long time, and they finally now have some laws on the books and they're very, very strict. This is a good thing. It also signals that possible bigger changes coming in society having to do with certain things like walking with a smartphone. I can see some penalties probably coming down the line because everybody seems to be doing it now. The news media here in Japan has been. I'll show you this article here for a second, and I want to show you, show you the information here.

00:01:05 John Daub: But you can see the police were out all over the country. You can see bicyclists having to line up in the bicycle areas to talk to police officers so that they understand the new rules, the new laws. This is hitting the national news for the last 72 hours and a couple of days before November as well. And the rules are pretty strict. And you can see they're showing the stations here in Tokyo. There's so many people walking with smartphones. I see people walking into light posts. I see people walking into other people.

00:01:36 John Daub: But the most annoying thing is that people are taking a lot longer to get off of subway platforms because they're just literally reading their smartphone and they're walking like a zombie and it holds up a line of people behind them. So I'm guessing that this is the next thing on the chopping block. And just because you're a tourist, you're not immune to this. They had some citizens here in Tokyo that were also talking about this and giving their impressions, and many of them say this is a problem. The news media actually filmed on this news report.

00:02:09 John Daub: They actually filmed. Look at the. This also impacts Uber delivery trucks and bicyclists and things like, look, they actually filmed a dude, I don't know if that was staged, run into a high school student. This is happening more and more. In fact, when I got my bicycle, the Yodobashi camera, my bicycle before this, for like, a very small price, I was able to get, like, up to a million dollars. Insurance in case I hit somebody and they lose their life. I don't know if it's still valid, but I signed up for insurance on my bicycle.

00:02:40 John Daub: But you can see here in the graph that over the years since the smartphones came out, traffic incidences because of smartphones have just been trending up. And they get on, they get on the authorities to get on the horn. And this is a, this story is more than just the bicycles for you that are tourists are coming here to move here. I want you to understand a little bit how Japanese society works. They're very reactive based on when things like this happen and more so maybe than other countries. But when they do come down, they hit hard usually and the penalties look pretty hard.

00:03:15 John Daub: We'll see if we can come back to this news broadcast in a second here. But the penalties for mobile phone use while cycling or cycling under the influence of alcohol. So it's a double whammy here. Mobile phone use, 6 months, 100,000 yen fine. In cases where phone use has led to an accident, one year up to 300,000 yen fine. These are the worst of the worst. And it could be, it could even be more. These are like sentencing mandates. Basically. If you are using a mobile phone, there's an increasing chance that you're going to be fined because of the, when they do a media push like this, the police and when they are stopping people and using manpower to hand out flyers, that means they're really serious about this kind of stuff.

00:03:58 John Daub: So looks like if you are using a smartphone on a rental motor bicycle and just because you're a tourist, you need to know this information. Cycling under the influence of alcohol, three years imprisonment, 500,000 yen fine. Not to mention, if you were to cause injury, this could be a lot worse for you. It happens all the time. Japan is one of the most crowded countries in the world, actually mostly just in the cities, but Japan is one of the most crowd. Tokyo is one of the most crowded cities in the world.

00:04:28 John Daub: Osaka sometimes feels even more crowded than that. So it's not easy. And the bike paths are awful. So a lot of people are riding on the sidewalks. If you're using a smartphone or you're under the influence of alcohol and they, and they nab you and, or you hit somebody and if you hit somebody, chances are you're going to get the police called on you. There's cameras all over the place. They're going to find you. Just ask Johnny Somali. They found him. That guy spent some significant time. Was it like three months in jail?

00:04:59 John Daub: Sort of in a limbo. He wasn't even charged, I don't think. And he was just sitting there waiting and they kept extending it. It's pretty rough here. And because they're trying to crack down on this, I'm just, I'm just giving you some public service information here. If you do intend to ride a bicycle, just understand, put your smartphone away. Now. The question is going to be undoubtedly, what about smartphone holders? Okay. Gosh, this is such a beautiful day. Look at this. It's just so wonderful. That's Rainbow Bridge over there.

00:05:31 John Daub: I'm in Toyosu. It's so, so nice out there. That's a boat just cruising there. What about smartphone holders? Can you get a holder, attach it to your handlebars and put the smartphone there and use that for navigation? The simple answer is no. The police have been telling people that and, and this goes contrary. I asked ChatGPT as well here. I said, you know, no manual of smartphones while you're writing. This includes typing, swiping, interacting. They'll catch you. Smartphone holders, smartphones must be secured to a holder attached to the bicycle so it doesn't obstruct your view.

00:06:06 John Daub: Apparently number two is wrong. I'm gonna look into this some more. But you can't have a smartphone holder. You can't be looking closely at any screen. You must be looking forward. Specific rules that can vary slightly by prefecture by prefecture. But the new laws, I don't think that the ChatGPT is on the ball here with that information. Of course it's a, you know, AI is a little bit slow in this case. But yeah, please don't have a smartphone holder at, or at least don't look at it. Best advice to you, just stop your bicycle, look at it, get your bearings and then go along.

00:06:40 John Daub: And even if you have to snake go little by little, don't pick your smartphone out of your pocket. Look at it. Unless you have stopped the operation of the bicycle. I, I think it's like common sense stuff and they're trying to get ahead of this. This is a, you know, a 20, a 21st century problem that just going to get worse and worse. But when we have maybe the smart glasses, there are more or less on the horizon. Now we're going to see, I think Marquis Brownlee put a video about some of the stuff that's coming down the pipeline that might be something that people can use.

00:07:14 John Daub: You know, where the, there's a, like a virtual reality, augmented reality smartphone map that you can navigate from if you're riding your bicycle. But right now we are still not there. You're still going to get hit with these penalties. And it doesn't matter that you're a tourist. You can't play that card anymore. You know why? Because you played it too much. Tourists have been playing that card so much. In particular in Tokyo and Osaka and Kyoto, they don't let you off the hook anymore. They just simply don't let you off the hook.

00:07:46 John Daub: There's no reason for you to know Rob CD is going to have a hard time now. Maybe the thing is that in order for you to have a hard time, you have to get caught. And I'm the kind of person, the older I get, the more reason, the more I got a son now. So I want to try to do everything I can. I don't cross on a red light if. Even if there's not a car coming because he's watching me. And kids are very observant. You know, you don't swear, you don't do bad things in front of your kids because they will mimic and copy you and they learn from you.

00:08:18 John Daub: So this is another thing. You can't take your smartphone out. I try really hard to create the best habits that I possibly can. And it goes along in life. Habits that you have will follow you through, like making your bed. Who makes their bed? Raise your hand. Well, do you still make your bed? If you didn't make your bed as a kid, there's a good chance you probably don't make your bed as an adult. But if you made your bed as a kid, there's a good chance that you probably are doing that today. So making sure that you have the.

00:08:49 John Daub: Those good habits help. But bicycling in Japan, it's really safe. And I'm actually on one of the best places to do it. This is Toyosu. And all along this man made island there's. You see this brick path behind me. It's really wide. You could bicycle all around the Toyosu Fish market in the back. So if you're going to come to Toyosu, which is. It's the Tsukiji of 2020. They moved out here about six, seven years ago now. It's been a while. This area is wonderful for bicycling. I know you're going to come here by the train.

00:09:20 John Daub: I'm telling you right now, it's much better if you get a bicycle and bicycle around the Toyosa market. And today, today on the helmet, there aren't any helmet laws. So I think it's for just for kids. But adults don't have to have helmets because it. If you're riding the city streets, you probably should have a helmet. I'll be honest with you, it can be dangerous out there and particularly if you're not sure about the area. I would recommend that you get a helmet. But there's no helmet laws. You can see that there are people that are riding.

00:09:52 John Daub: The lady just passed me. She's not riding a helmet. I don't ride a helmet. I don't go very fast. I'm not in traffic. But there's no law for helmets. That could change as well. That could change as well. The bicycle rental places, the ones they have smart. There's one from docomo where you can rent them for a couple of dollars. I think it's a couple of dollars and they rented by the hour. I think you could touch a Suica, but you have to register to the app or something. You can get these almost all over the city.

00:10:23 John Daub: These red bicycles doesn't come with a helmet. So you don't need to have a helmet in order to have that bicycle. If they did, that would change the laws, that would change their bicycle rental business for sure. It's hard to get without a Japanese credit card. Rights and art that could be also an issue. I think they used to have digital currency. There has to be a way where you could use your credit cards and charge it up, but you know it's always going to be changing. But the rental bicycles, I haven't seen too many tourists using them.

00:10:55 John Daub: But the, the Uber Eats and the Grab Bicyclists, I see a lot of the people who are trying to earn money to buy a new bicycle will be using the rental bicycles to do that. They're battery power, battery assisted so they can get. They got a little bit of a boost to it. But the most interesting thing, the most interesting thing I thought was when they do these kinds of laws, they're very analytical with why they made these changes. And the news brought up the speed of Trevor was gifted. 30 well, thank you very much, Walter for the gifting, the, the memberships here.

00:11:29 John Daub: I appreciate that. I'm gonna see if I can, I can scroll through this. Towards the end of it, they showed you the graph of how the accidents are going up here. But more, more than that, they show you this. Because of the battery assisted bicycles, the speed is going up and the speed of the bicycles is also a reason why they want to get rid of the smartphones and people are going faster. There's A higher percentage chance that there's going to be a worse injury. And people cannot stop SUD much as they used to because they're going faster as a result.

00:12:01 John Daub: Look at these people. Even on the smartphone holders, that is no good. You're looking at the smartphone and it's got to be in your pocket. Now the best way to do it is to stop and use it and go to the side of the road, make sure you're in a safe spot. But it's. The police are informing all the moms. You can see, there's one right here. All the dads, all the people, all the commuters. You can't have your smartphones. Helmets should be mandatory. I agree with you. Maybe they should be. Right now. They're not.

00:12:31 John Daub: In Japan, most people have these low bar mama chattis. They're built on the Dutch system of bicycling that everybody seems to have. You'll see some of them coming here. This has become the old grumpy man channel. Well, Art, I guess if safety is, you know, just gonna have to put it out there. If you don't know about the rules, you're not going to have a chance. You're not. You're going to get fined and you're going to get in trouble. And I think, yeah, I guess it could be. If you want to look at it that way.

00:13:02 John Daub: You could look at it as the channel to save you money, the channel to save you time dealing with the authorities. Lots of things that you can look at at art. It's nice to see here anyways. Beautiful view. I'll. I'll take all this stuff on directly. Today. There's. If you are in Tokyo, there is a really nice Toyosu Ichiba, which is the festival here. I saw this in the subway station. It's a festival for the Toyosu fish market. They have it on the back side of the market there. There's a map on the bottom.

00:13:32 John Daub: It's only today. And I thought today it's. It's sunny. I'm gonna take a break from editing it because it's just too nice out there. You see that yellow area is the Kaiba, the event area. And I'm gonna go check it out real quickly. I think you gotta get a. I don't know if you have to get a ticket or anything like that, but might be interesting. Might be interesting. With more and more tourists coming in here, there's a lot of stuff that you need to know. And I think you are not impervious. You're not what is the word.

00:14:03 John Daub: You're under the same laws that I am as well as all the Japanese. And this is a big one. This is a big one because you know, if you were caught riding under the influence, they pretty much just gave you a warning. Those warnings are over. And what I'm seeing is that because there are so more and more tourists here, they're gonna get fined as well as with the locals. And not knowing is not an excuse anymore. And I want to bring you that information, take your questions. In any case, you don't want to have any legal problems as a tourist.

00:14:35 John Daub: That's the point. I had a really good friend here. He, he tried, this is about eight years ago, he was in Roppongi and he tried to fly a drone in Roppongi. And actually the location, if you look on the map was really close to the Russian embassy. That's not so smart. The police, within 30 seconds. No, let's just say a minute. He said this is his report. He said within a minute he heard cop cars coming and he didn't know if it was for him or what. So he brought the drone down, he put it away and he walked into a Starbucks.

00:15:06 John Daub: They still found him. He was hiding. I wouldn't say hiding. He was hiding in the corner. I guess if you say hiding it makes it more fun. But he's in the corner of the Starbucks trying to get drink of coffee and stay out of the way. But somehow they found him. I guess they had video cameras all over the area there. They knew what he looked like and they took, they confiscated his drone. This was eight years ago. They didn't find him, which I thought was shocking. But they said he could get his drone back in three months.

00:15:37 John Daub: He had the Mavic 2 when it was, it was brand new, so that's like a two thousand dollar drone. So he had a friend go into the police station to try to get the drone for him, but they wouldn't give it back to him. Then I think he went in, in person when he came back to Japan and they wouldn't give the drone, it was destroyed. So I am just gonna say right now, the last thing you want to do is to get in trouble with the authorities. But more than the drone, if you do get in trouble with the police here, you are going to waste a day.

00:16:08 John Daub: And he ended up spending about 13 hours in the police station just sitting there that you lose because you're at the police station talking about stuff, waiting for one officer to refer you to another officer to refer you to another as they make a report and maybe even take a mug shot. I don't know how bad things get for misdemeanors. I believe they take a mug shot and fingerprint you even for that kind of stuff. I don't know. But in the end, it was a pretty waste of time. A big waste of time. And he had a very limited amount of time here.

00:16:40 John Daub: Not what you want to do here. They'll get translators. You're gonna have to wait in the police station as they find a translator that can translate for you. That can take hours. If not, they're gonna. You just sit there. So the last thing you want to do is to get in trouble with authorities in Japan. And the more we see this stuff happening, and the more people get frustrated with that 1% of the bad tourists, the more this stuff kind of happens here. Just a reality. Japanese prisons don't look so bad. Are you kidding me?

00:17:11 John Daub: Are you kidding me? They're not good. No, prison is good. You don't want to be in it. Number one, you don't get rights. Let's talk about detention and holding. Those aren't prisons. These are places where people have died while being processed to be deported. There was a woman from Nepal, NHK World brought this story, which I thought was really interesting. She died in. In the custody of detention. Detention, I think, waiting for asylum or an overstate of visa. But they wouldn't give her her medication. Basically, you get not enough food.

00:17:43 John Daub: You get. They give you black and white TVs, which is probably worse than having no TV. They give you. They give you enough. Like, they're psychological about this. They give you enough of the luxury stuff that you're used to, but they make it really irritating to you that you don't want it anymore. The amount of calories that you get also is right on the border or underneath it. So you always are a little bit, I don't know, malnourished. It's. It's good food, but it's always, like, on the border of the amount of calories that you probably should have.

00:18:18 John Daub: So they find ways to really make you pay the price. It's not just in the, you know, the fact that maybe the temperature is colder than normal or it's hotter than normal. Like, little teeny things that just really eat at you. Like, if you play what Is it that Clans game on. On your iPhone, you know, there's the bat attack, where the bats start, you know, biting away at the cannon until it breaks apart sort of that kind of a thing. And anyone who's playing that game, Clans of something or other, will know what I mean.

00:18:48 John Daub: I kind of messed around with that before. Don't go there in prison. It's not like the movies, man. Think about your family. You're going to be traumatized by it. Red Beard writes in here, you know, I go prison here. There's a reason why Johnny Somali did not come back here. He went to Korea. And you don't want to go to prison there either. It wears you down over time to break you. Absolutely. Click. Clash of clans. Yeah, there's like these bats that the wizards will summon and they will swarm and they will eat the cannons.

00:19:20 John Daub: I don't know how a bat eating a cannon destroys it, but like, they do that to you in like prison. So it's like that. Wrxr, WRX Turbo is in the house. How you doing? Don't go there for that. So before we leave here, those joining us here, this has been big news in Japan. I think it's just good to bring it to you. Don't get your smartphone out when you ride a bicycle. This is from Kyoto News. People caught will get a hundred thousand six hundred fifty fine. That's pretty significant. And if they cause an accident, it's.

00:19:50 John Daub: It goes up. And basically, if you cause an accident, you're not just going to feel bad about it, but it's going to really rip a dent in it. And I don't know how you pay as a, as a foreigner, but if you can't pay, then you're going to serve time in jail. I think it's something like that. And you might get sued as well. I put this out here. If you cause damage, there's a good chance you get sued too, by the people for medical bills. It's never the same amount as you would get sued in the United States, but it's enough where it really hurts you.

00:20:23 John Daub: It's enough that you could pay 1.15 milligrams of alcohol per liter of breath. Face prison terms up to three years and you should go to prison if you're writing under the influence on a bicycle. I, I've just seen too many accidents. I've seen too many people get hit by bicycles just riding around Tokyo. I've seen people at night. And that means, basically what this means is at night you're going to see more people stopped by police officers at night for, for checking to see if you're under the influence.

00:20:53 John Daub: Shortly after the law took effect, the Osaka prefecture police said Friday they already had issued a red ticket to a cyclist under the influence of alcohol and investigating six other cases. So this is, this is already going on here. 295 accidents caused by cyclists. They just want to cut that down to zero and they're never going to get it perfect. But again, if you can save lives and cut it down, this is the way Japan operates. And I think it's important that you understand that. And this, this has been in the news in English for quite a while.

00:21:25 John Daub: And if it's the first time you're hearing this, I think it's a good idea that you just understand it. Maybe pass this around. You can't ride around, you know, pub hopping in this. You probably shouldn't be getting drunk anyways in a foreign country, but if you do, this is probably the safest place to do it. Yeah, I don't even know if they have body cams in Japan. Maybe somebody can, can talk about that today. All right, everybody, that's all I have for you. I wanted to give you a heads up on this. There's a couple of other things happening in the news.

00:21:58 John Daub: I understand we don't want this to be a grumpy old man channel, but this kind of information, I think needs to be passed along to people that are visiting Japan. You need to know what some of the laws are, and I'm not going to stop doing that on this channel. I love that comment art. Now I'm like, I'm focused on it. It's like a warning shot. I get it. I understand how you guys feel about it. But again, you know how I think that maybe these public service announcements can be things that I can do inside of other episodes, perhaps.

00:22:30 John Daub: But I think if the headlines say warning, then it, you know, be ready for this, then people are more apt to, to understand it just by reading the headlines. The idea of this is just to save you guys from having a little bit of trouble here because I love riding a bicycle in Japan. Just, I can't do it. I can't do it with a smartphone. I'm guilty of it, too. I take out my smartphone all the time. And now that I see the news, I, I'm gonna just. I don't know what you can do. Maybe you can have a voice navigation, but I, I guess if you're an Uber drive, Uber Eats driver, there's permits that you could possibly get.

00:23:06 John Daub: Like, it's a little, kind of a lot of gray area right now. But if you don't, if you can't get the directions and then you can't obviously do your job right. How are you supposed to get from A to B? So I'm sure there's a workaround where people can get permits or they can get licensed or they have to take a test to understand the laws that they can't focus on the smartphone. If you have a permit, then that allows you to get off real or easily. If they stop you, I don't know what's going on, but just stuff that's good to know.

00:23:38 John Daub: And anyways, it's an excuse for me to be outside and to say hi to everybody because it's been a couple of days since I did the live stream. Yeah. Good time. If you are in Japan to go to Yamadera. This is last year, but from Yamadera and Yamagata Prefecture you can see at this time. This is exactly one year ago. This episode is the next episode to come out on the only Japan main channel next week. I talk about the mailman who delivers 1000 steps every single day and almost every single day to pick up the mail and to deliver mail to the residents of the hill on Yamadera.

00:24:12 John Daub: So this is a neat way to see Yamadera, which is one of the most beautiful spots, this lookout tower from the temple, one of the most beautiful spots in all of Japan. And yeah, I would definitely encourage you guys to get on a Shinkansen and go check out Yamadera on the other side of Japan, on the Sea of Japan side, more or less Yamadira, Yamagata Prefecture. Just as a little slice. Sakata, that's on the Sea of Japan side. But you can see there's my camera. Always filming the main channel episode. But beautiful, beautiful at sunset.

00:24:43 John Daub: Nobody was there except for that dude that was coming here. So thank you for the gifted subscriptions out there and for the super chats. Love you guys very much. I'll try to take you out. Trevor Beck. Good idea for vending machine trip. I'm trying to do a midnight snack run, Trevor. So let's get, let's get moving on that. I appreciate it so much. Got to get out there. Oh, and my friend David is here from David and Ellis. I want to see if David will bring us into his accommodation. He has a monthly rental in the Ueno region.

00:25:14 John Daub: He's. He's here for a month and he got an apartment instead of getting a hotel. I think this is fantastic. He picked it up at the. He picked up his keys at the airport. It was like the most, very easy to go process. So I think this is something more people might be really interested in. So let's see if David can get on here. They're in Kawaguchi this week. If we can get take a look inside of his apartment, which is facilitated by Japan Airlines, which I thought was cool despite the fact that he flew Ana in here.

00:25:45 John Daub: Let's take a look into side of his apartment. So we got some stuff here. Midnight run. I don't know if if it's midnight run is back, but maybe midnight snack run. Maybe light on the snacks, More on the run. Midnight snacks are not good for you. But hey, I think maybe once a month we can. We can bring this back here and it's been a while. I think I'm doing okay with the diet. Maybe too much. So a midnight snack might not be bad every. Every now and then. Take care, everybody. Enjoy the day. Get outside, get some sun.

00:26:16 John Daub: Put your smartphones away. And if you're on a bicycle, definitely put your smartphones away because you know, we want you to use that money to buy some food and stuff. Buy some famichiki. There you go, Blue. Thanks. See you guys. Satrio's on the ball there.