"Quite common"? I've spent more than 3 decades here, visited most of the countries on the western side, both north and south (although embarrassingly little eastern parts), and have not seen this once in my life. Thinking about it, I haven't seen this anywhere in the world.

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looperhacks a day ago | parent | next [-]

You will usually see these in public places that have no other access controls - think in a park, rather than in a restaurant. It's for places that have a high risk of people sleeping in them.

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embedding-shape a day ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah, I do visit public bathrooms from time to time, especially in Spain, Germany, France, Denmark and Sweden, and never seen that once anywhere, although I've seen much worse things on single occasions than a timer for the door to open.

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aa-jv a day ago | parent [-]

I've seen them in some of the shadier parks in the Netherlands, Italy and Austria. Yppenplatz, Vienna, has a particularly nasty (smelling) one which the countdown clock does very little to obviate.

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jakzurr 20 hours ago | parent [-]

A really nasty smell would get me out fast. Can't imagine any use for the timer, unless you're trying to estimate the remaining oxygen.

	▲	aa-jv 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The timer is to let the junkie know how much privacy they have left before they can be discovered in the act of shooting up.

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amiga386 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> people sleeping

Junkies' heroin-induced stupor.

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keiferski 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The fact that you haven’t been in central or Eastern Europe might be the key.

I haven’t seen an actual countdown timer, but many of the public toilets in Poland have time limits that are displayed on a sign, and announced by the computer voice loudspeaker. Usually it’s 30 minutes though IIRC.