With no ID system, many are scrapped
District offices in Seoul, which bear the responsibility for managing public bicycle racks, have seen an increasing number of abandoned bikes. They have had to scrap the bikes, as there is no official bicycle registration system in South Korea. To give an example, the Gangseo-gu district office scrapped 26 bikes left at some of its 46 bike racks during the first half of this year. According to a law passed in 1995 to encourage people to use bicycles, Seoul has expanded the number of public bicycle racks. The number of spaces for bikes stands at nearly 67,000, from 23,000 in 1997.By law, district offices can remove a bike which has been left for over 10 days. They should then inform the owner, and bikes whose owners do not show up are scrapped or sold. But without a registration system in place, bike owners are nearly impossible to track down. In Songpa-gu, Gangseo-gu, and Mapo-gu, where bicycle use is higher than in other districts, local administrative offices there estimate they scrap about 5 to 10 percent of bikes abandoned at public racks every year. "As an increased number of citizens uses bicycles, more people are urging us to set up more bike racks," said Lee Seung-haeng, an official at the Gangseo-gu office. "If bicycles are abandoned, other citizens cannot use the bike racks." He urged people to show more civic responsibilty when using public bicycle racks.
