like who forgets the mobile or the glasses, there are those who neglect their grandmother and leave her cornered in the back seat of a taxi. In Spain, which has needed two laws to manage memory, people forget almost everything. Among other nonsense, in public service cars, a bag full of sex toys or an urn with ashes of a relative
This collection of omissions comes from the mobility application Free Now, which has analyzed million trips carried out through the platform during this year to classify the European cities with the careless travelers.
At the head of the distractions appears Marseille (France), but the European country with the most losses is Spain. Specifically, in taxis 2,212 belongings have been abandoned, about 23,000 throughout Europe. The data corresponds only to the vehicles with which this operator works, but they serve as a guide: confusion abounds.
Behind the French city, Free Now encompasses Oviedo, Gijón and Avilés, second, jointly, in the classification. A little further down, seventh and ninth are Valencia and Seville, which share the list with cities such as Cannes or Hamburg.
Forgotten in taxis
The citizens of London and Edinburgh (United Kingdom), on the opposite side, are the most cautious with their personal belongings. The type of sampling does not allow definitive conclusions to be reached, because the presence of the platform is not similar in all countries: it is not clear that the brain err on a matter of nationality.
Science speaks, instead, of genetics and origin. A few years ago, for example, researchers from the University of Bohn (Germany) found a connection between the little distractions from day to day and the DRD2 gene.
Those who own a certain variant of this dopamine receptor they get confused more easily. Other studies, however, associate the drop in memory (not so much from a loss of attention, but from memories) with the neural efficiency: the brain retains only the valuable information.
The distractions of Mondays
Free Now also detects that whoever takes a taxi on a Monday at 11 in the morning is exposed to increased risk of distraction. That hour of swift memory that precedes oblivion. They are also conducive to abandonment on weekend days, between 11:00 and 14:00. And much more in summer and holiday periods. In July of this year, the number of abandoned personal items in seats grew 75% compared to July 2021.
The things that are forgotten the most are not surprising, by pure probability: in this order, mobile phones, the wallet with the documentation and the bag. Jackets, glasses, headphones, suitcases, jewelry, umbrellas and, closing the list, the shopping bag are also abandoned. “Most of these objects are returned to their owners,” says Free Now.
Less frequently, users leave behind more peculiar belongings, such as a wedding dress or three live lizards, besides that grandmother. “It is important that the brain forgets the irrelevant details and instead focus on the things that will help make decisions in the real world,” says Richards, co-author of the study. The persistence and transience of memory.
