In 1960, Japanese owned just under 20 million bicycles. In the same year, there were only 2.29 million automobiles on the road in Japan.
Flash forward to the 21st century. In 2005, there were more than 86 million bicycles in Japan. Car ownership has increased in the same half century by a tremendous amount, but still has yet to eclipse the number of bicycles. In 2004, 74.9 million cars clogged the narrow roads of Japan.
With young men - the main demographic for car sellers - showing less and less interest in car ownership, those figures look to diverge in the future.
Moving on to road fatalities, in 2005 cars led the way. 6,871 people died in automobile accidents. In comparison, 846 cyclists were killed in accidents in the same year.
Road fatalities for drivers are trending down while those for cyclists are increasing, which is due to the increased number of people riding bikes in Japan.
© CycleKyoto.com
Tags Japan Touring Kyoto Cycle Japanese
No comments:
Post a Comment