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Image: YouTube/衝撃的なチャンネル
crime

77-year-old man arrested after road dispute with another driver

15 Comments
By Casey Baseel, SoraNews24

While there are many sources of stress that come with living in the city, spending your days in more bucolic environs, like, say, the rural town of Komono in Japan’s Mie Prefecture, seems like it should help you become a laid-back person.

But sometimes the opposite happens, and being 70-plus years old simply means that someone just has seven decades’ worth of pent-up anger inside, and living in the countryside means that all that ill-will gets flung at a person who really doesn’t deserve it, simply because there are no other targets around, as shown in this video of perhaps Japan’s angriest elderly motorist.

The video, uploaded to YouTube channel Shogeki na Channel, was originally captured by the drive recorder of an unnamed 20-something Japanese man who was driving through Yokkaichi, the town that borders Komonocho to the east, shortly before 1 p.m. on the afternoon of Saturday, January 13. For those who’ve never driven in Japan, speed limits can sometimes feel extremely slow, and in the residential section shown at the beginning of the video, the posted limit is 30 kilometers (19 miles) per hour.

Nevertheless, the driver obeys the law and makes his way slowly past the houses. Once he gets out into the farmland and the road opens up, the speed limit rises, so he increases his speed, but not enough to please the car behind him, which crosses over the center line like its driver is in a hurry…only to pull back into the lane and come to a complete stop.

This obviously means the 20-something driver has to stop his car too, and out of the car in front steps 77-year-old Komonocho resident Noriaki Matsuoka. Matsuoka strides up to the window of the young driver’s car, and fires off the opening salvo of his tirade with “You were driving slow on purpose, weren’t you?”

Confused, the young driver responds with, “What?” When Matsuoka repeats his question, adding in an extra dose of anger, the driver starts to explain the obvious, saying “The speed limit is 30 kilometers per hour back there-“ before Matsuoka cuts him off with “You dumbass!”

Startled, the driver tells Matsuoka that it’s dangerous to be standing in the middle of the road as he is. Bafflingly, this causes Matsuoka to start yelling at the driver to “Get out of the way!” despite the fact that Matsuoka is currently stopping traffic to pick a fight with the younger motorist. The confrontation takes enough time that the clouds actually begin to shift position in the skies above, and eventually a truck coming up from behind has to swing into the opposite lane in order to pass Matsuoka’s parked car.

During the heated exchange of words, neither Matsuoka nor the other driver can be seen, but the younger man claims that Matsuoka reached into the vehicle during the argument, causing him to say “I’m going to call the police!” He made good on the promise by contacting the authorities, who tracked Matsuoka from his car’s license plate, as seen in the video, and on March 5 arrested him for violation of traffic regulations and attempted assault.

Matsuoka denies reaching into the younger man’s car, but does admit to illegally parking his car in order to yell at the other driver, saying “I was angry that he was driving so slowly.”

Sources: FNN via Hachima Kiko, Sankei West, YouTube/衝撃的なチャンネル via YouTube/Panda_AU

Read more stories from SoraNews24.

-- Truck driver hailed as “hero” for cutting off car on wet highway

-- Driver struck by another vehicle in the wrong lane, still ordered to pay 40 million yen

-- “It came out of nowhere!” Traffic cam catches poorest excuse ever【Video】

© SoraNews24

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

15 Comments
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There are many of these angry oldies (and youngies) around, especially driving, but I see a fair share of them arguing on the trains in the mornings. Too many Japanese adults are just emotional time bombs looking for something or someone to explode at.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

skip to 0.50

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Slow drivers are a pain. I do not look forward to driverless cars. If somebody is in a hurry, just pull over or indicate left turn, and let them pass. It is not worth injury.

-5 ( +5 / -10 )

How come all crime videos are crap but this simple dashboard cam was wonderful?

5 ( +5 / -0 )

@Goodlucktoyou - Slow drivers are a pain. If somebody is in a hurry, just pull over or indicate left turn, and let them pass. 

If you consider someone driving at the speed limit a slow driver, you are the problem, not the other driver. If you are in a hurry it is your fault, not the fault of everybody else. Speeding and impatient drivers are the cause of most accidents. Speeding is reckless and dangerous!

5 ( +9 / -4 )

For reasons unknown of the posted speed limits are too low. And probably 95% of drivers in Japan do not go the speed limit. It’s dangerous to drive the speed limit here.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Fukuoka has some of the worst drivers in all of Japan, you have to be so careful because they drive so recklessly. Also Fukuoka has some of the narrowest streets for a major city, so you often have just 10cm or even less when passing other cars and you have these people that speed as if they’re on a giant wide US road. Mornings are the most dangerous and in the evening everyone drives so slow, so road rage is not a huge problem here, but it is a growing problem.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Yes and No: 30 km section in the curvy first part deserves to be followed. But 40 km for the later one, with yellow middle line, 50 is ok and probably what most would drive.

As for above comment: if you drive 10 below limit on a wide road, normal weather, you make me impatient because I am not here for sightseeing, a just want to get from A to B!

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

In such a hurry but has so much time to stop and rant...

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Japan is like any other country, hardly peaceful all the time. People will get into arguments and fights.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Hay kid, you there's something they didn't TEACH you, at Japanese "Driving School"...EVADE and Elude.

You should have IMMEDIATELY backed up, moved completely over to the OTHER lane, and drove off....

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

You should have IMMEDIATELY backed up, moved completely over to the OTHER lane, and drove off....

then you hit the man exiting the vehicle, and instead of him being in prison and you laughing at him, now you were in prison and he’s dead. Bravo.

Please leave your clever driving practice in your country.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Woohow.. I'm really surprised that most of the crimes in Japan involves old people. I'm also surprised that someone at his age is still driving. Japan amazes me in different ways... I don't know if its good or bad.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@WA4TKG

forgotten what a continuous yellow line means?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Obviously driving too fast can be dangerous...remember that speed limit are not targets, but safe maximums.

Driving too slowly can also be dangerous...example scenario a car pulling in front of a faster-moving car will cause that driver, and probably others further back, to brake sharply, in a domino effect, which can lead to collisions or near-misses.

I do not drive that fast, I just go with the flow of traffic.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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