Is the Mama-chari thing not uniquely Japanese either?

I don't really know why myself, but I sometimes make fun of mamachari-ists. It could be because I think that they are a danger to society and themselves and that many---a majority? most? 99.9999%?---are criminally negligent idiots on wheels (includes the koban-sitting crowd when they transfer their asses from koban seats to official police mama-chali seat) who don't seem to care the slightest if they kill or injure themselves, old ladies, old men, children, or kittens and puppies.

Is it just the number of mama-chari-bakas that I run into (literally sometimes) in Tokyo that make them seem so exceptionally dangerous? Or is it something brought on by riding one of those mild-steel, heavy clunkers with poor brakes and battleship handling? While reading an article about the Bike Snob in the NYT, I saw this quote:

“In a certain way the Dutch city bike* is the SUV of bicycles,” the Snob wrote. “It’s a little too big, it creates the illusion of safety, and nobody pays any attention when they’re operating one.”

Damn. Is there nothing uniquely unique about this country?

*The classic mama-chari as it is known in Europe and now, the US.










(Above) Made by the Dutch Bicycle Company the "conference bike", with luck, should make its way to Japan sooner or later. Excellent for forced group-think. Image from here.


Actually, I think Australia is more uniquely unique if this video is accurate:


(Youtube via Bike Snob.)

Is my Colleague from Down Under in that? J? Was that you when you had real hair?