crime

5-year-old girl in serious condition after being hit by car at crossing in Chiba

26 Comments

A 5-year-old girl was in critical condition in hospital on Tuesday after being hit by a car at a crossing in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, on Monday night.

According to police, the accident happened at a cross with no traffic lights at about 8 p.m. TV Asahi reported that the girl and three members of her family were crossing the street when she was hit by a car from the left.

The driver, identified as Shu Kamiya, 22, was arrested on a negligent driving charge. He was quoted by police as saying he took his eye off the crossing for a second and didn't notice the girl.

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26 Comments
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The driver, identified as Shu Kamiya, 22, was arrested on a negligent driving charge. He was quoted by police as saying he took his eye off the crossing for a second and didn’t notice the girl Real smart Kamiya kun! I hope this little girl survives and that this idiot Kamiya spends a good, long time behind bars!!

-2 ( +4 / -7 )

no traffic light, the mother is not holding her child's hand while crossing and I bet its dark, a car turn left...result accident. When are the mothers of this country ever learn?

-2 ( +6 / -7 )

Every single day. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

There is something wrong here.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

The driver, identified as Shu Kamiya, 22, was arrested on a negligent driving charge. He was quoted by police as saying he took his eye off the crossing for a second and didn’t notice the girl

Translates to = "I was just checking my phone for a second, and replying to my girlfriends email and didn’t notice the girl.."

I hope this little girl is okay!

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Why wasn't a parent holding her hand? Parents shound be accountable too! Hope she recovers soon!

-1 ( +5 / -6 )

Wish you a full and speedy recovery, little one. :)

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Hope she recovers. Yet another example of drivers not doing their job well. And why, pres tel, did he take his eye off the crossing? To check his keitai?

2 ( +5 / -3 )

A very sad story and one that will haunt the parents and the driver for their future lives. The drivers of today have too many distractions while driving,TV,movies,Navis,Mobile phones,GPS,SMS etc. I do hope he had a dashboard cam that was working and will possibly apportion blame,although its probably 99pc the drivers fault in this case.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

TheInterstat @ 09:05AM JST wrote -

"Every single day. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

There is something wrong here."

Yes something IS wrong - but is it really so hard to see what that something is?

People will blame everything and everyone - the city, the infrastructure, the drivers skills, cellphones,cyclists, pedestrians, the parents - and even the child herself ("Parents should always hold the childs hand" - no wonder fewer children play outside these days!), while somehow leaving the elephant in the room, the car itself free of any culpability.

The car itself is the killer - every five minutes, somewhere in the world, another person is killed in a car accident. Take the car out of the equation and those deaths would not/will not occur. There are 40,000 annual deaths from car accidents in the US alone - not to mention the deaths that are caused indirectly from manufacturing , pollution, climate change etc. Amazing how we can rationalize this. The willful blindness and the mental and moral gymnastics that are necessary to avoid going there - to avoid laying blame where it rightly lies. I suppose this must be because we cannot see any other way.

Cars are deadly and will go on being so - every 5 minutes - unless we accept that the ONLY real solution is FAR FEWER cars. Quite simply, urban planners need to start planning cities that discourage or even inhibit car use. These cities will be more centralized, much less car-centric, and as a result, more livable and safer. Sprawl needs to be reduced, while the building of efficient and safe sidewalks and dedicated cycling roads and other alternative transportation systems should always be prioritized over car-centric road building policies that always cedes the streets - the life and character of the city to the automobile.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

Sad to read this and right into the New Year. I do hope that little girl will recover soon. Hang in there little one!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

no traffic light, the mother is not holding her child's hand while crossing and I bet its dark, a car turn left...result accident. When are the mothers of this country ever learn?

Why blame the mom when it is obvious the driver is at fault. What if the mom was holding the child's right hand? It would not made a difference if you have a car with a driver paying no attention barreling at you, 5 years old or 50 years old.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

A huge number of people lose their lives, or have those lives ruined, in road traffic accidents very year. A few examples - in 2010 in Japan the number outright fatalities were 5,745. In 2011 in the UK it was 1,901 killed and a staggering 23,122 seriously injured. So unfortunately rather more than one every single day. In any given country it is several, every single day.

This type of case simply doesn`t make it into the national media in the UK, the US etc etc unless there were multiple fatalities or some other factor considered newsworthy. Unfortunately there are too many accidents to report.

Drivers here may be marginally more accident prone here than a few countries, but are actually better in relative terms than others. The data is public record. I suspect that Japan Today sometimes likes to pander to its readers prejudices.

Best wishes to the victim in this case, I hope she recovers quickly.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Pedestrian crossings are a joke here! I cannot count the amount of times I have nearly been cleaned up on a crossing or how many times I have seen drivers barge through while 20 0dd people were on the crossings. I deliberately walk out in front of cars and make them stop. I will even stand there and wait for them to stop before I move off the road and, I have been abused for it plenty of times. Meanwhile, the police want to send bicycle riders to rider school. That makes perfect sense. NOT!

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Disillusioned:

Pedestrian crossings are a joke here!

You're talking about crossings with pedestrian lights, right? As I've said before, when there are lights, half the drivers stop, half don't. When there are no lights, NO driver has ever stopped for me. Why bother wasting paint?

Seems to me, roads in Japan are full of people who don't use lights when cycling in the dark, don't slow down, don't hold their kids' hands when crossing roads, ignore red lights, ignore pedestrian lights. I've lost count the number of times I've seen young kids stand up from the front seat of cars and trucks - the parents think its cute - I think it's playing with death. Idiotic, selfish, blind - you name it.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

I saw someone crossing on a marked pedestrian crossing the other week (no traffic lights), all in good time. An approaching SUV leaned on his horn for a full three seconds infuriated that someone had the temerity to cross in front of him and make him slow down. I really wanted to put my boot into the side of his door, the arrogant tunc.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Yes, the driver is a negligent ass, but a five-year old, somehow separated enough from other members of her family, enough that a car can hit her and not the others...?

As a parent of two I find this surprising.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

"DisillusionedJAN. 02, 2013 - 06:29PM JST Pedestrian crossings are a joke here! I cannot count the amount of times I have nearly been cleaned up on a crossing or how many times I have seen drivers barge through while 20 0dd people were on the crossings. I deliberately walk out in front of cars and make them stop. I will even stand there and wait for them to stop before I move off the road and, I have been abused for it plenty of times. Meanwhile, the police want to send bicycle riders to rider school. That makes perfect sense. NOT!"

So true. Cars rule. Pedestrians are fair game for arrogant drivers. Or arrogant tuncs. Time to crack down.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Just another day in Safety Japan where pedestrian crossings are ignored and parents ignore their children in the street.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Maybe it was different when I was a kid, but this is what my dad taught me when I was young. "Yes son, people have the right to walk on those painted lines on the street, but they don't magically stop cars, so go ahead and look both ways." Living on a military base, I often note that the children on base are even more careless in the streets than those downtown and it makes me both sad and angry. Sad that I know sooner or later, one of them is going to get hurt. Angry because some of them almost seem to do it with arrogance, as if to say "I have the right of way and you will stop while I walk down the middle of this road if I feel like doing so." Make sure you teach your kids about the dangers of crossing the street, all the lines/lights/signals in the world will not stop 1 1/2 tons of metal with a careless driver behind the wheel...

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Hit and Run- news Hit, driver waits at the scene, pedestrian survives and goes to the hospital- not news, it happens several times daily.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I read this story on another site. The way they had it worded, it seemed be more negligence on the part of the parents for not looking before crossing

2 ( +2 / -0 )

. I do hope he had a dashboard cam that was working and will possibly apportion blame,although its probably 99pc the drivers fault in this case. http://www.hireprofessionalseoexpert.com

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

So true. Cars rule. Pedestrians are fair game for arrogant drivers

The thing is, half of these Sunday drivers don't look like the arrogant types - they can be timid-looking women or nerdy-types, but they have one thing in common - they are idiots and act as if they're blind as a bat. A few months back, a young nerdy-type guy was driving into our workplace where there are speed restrictions. I just knew he wouldn't stop for me, so I slowed down and waited and this guy just went on non-stop (missing me by inches), with his face pressed forward near the windscreen, looking straight ahead as if I wasn't there, not looking left or right. So what, you say. Well there was a big TOMARE sign painted on the road.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

To those who are asking why wasn't the mother holding the little girl's hand... how do you know she wasn't? Were you there? Did you see? I don't see any mention of that in the report above...

From what I've seen, some drivers don't even pause at pedestrian crossings, they just keep on motoring.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Not sure about the rules of the road in Japan, but here you make sure traffic isn't approaching before entering a crosswalk. Granted, cars turning onto the road you're crossing are supposed to give way if you're already crossing, but the article wasn't clear on whther the driver turned onto the road or was driving straight.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

This is so serious i will pray for her....god bless

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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