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The Kobe District Court has sentenced a 65-year-old bus driver to 3 1/2 years in prison for reckless driving resulting in death and injury after the bus he was driving plowed into a group of pedestrians, killing two of them and injuring six others in April.
According to the court ruling, Fumio Ono was driving the bus when it suddenly accelerated and hit a group of of pedestrians on a crosswalk near JR Sannomiya Station at around 2 p.m. on April 21. Rio Yanai, a 20-year-old university student from Akashi, Hyogo Prefecture, and Yusei Nasu, a 23-year-old part-time worker in Kobe were killed, while six other people in their 20s to 50s were injured.
The bus failed to stop even after hitting the people on a crosswalk and crashed into the dividing strip.
Ono said he had stepped on the brake pedal, while explaining that the accident took place after he dropped off all of his passengers at a bus stop near the scene, according to the police. The Kobe transport bureau said it found no abnormalities with the brakes or accelerator of the bus in an inspection conducted before it left the depot.
The court heard that Ono, who joined Kobe's transportation bureau in 1986, has decades of experience driving a bus. But there were three incidents between 2006 and 2010 in which passengers suffered injuries inside his bus.
© Japan Today/Kyodo
17 Comments
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Yubaru
Three and a half years, the value of two people's lives. Somehow that does not seem right!
Spitfire
This incident happened around the same time as the one involving the old self-entitled 'elite' who plowed into and killed a mother and daughter in Ikebukuro and instead of calling for an ambulance he called his son for advice on what to do to get himself out of his predicament.Wonder how long it takes for his case to go to court if it ever does.
Vince Black
3 1/2 years for a double murder. Somthin ain't right
ksteer
This is just completely false. Do you even ride buses? Any major cities' fleet are generally new, automatic transmission buses.. Considering the bus he was driving was an Isuzu Erga it most definitely had an automatic transmission...
kurisupisu
The bus suddenly accelerated because?
The driver pushed the accelerator instead of the brake.
Toasted Heretic
Because it's reckless driving, resulting in death. Not murder.
zones2surf
This! I am with @Spitfire on this point.
One can take an issue with whether 3 1/2 years is long enough. Given that this bus driver had three previous incidents where passengers inside a bus he was driving suffered injury and given the circumstances around this accident, he clearly was negligent and reckless and probably shouldn't have been driving a bus anymore. However, it was unintentional.
But, @Spitfire makes the very valid point about the former bureaucrat who had the accident in Ikebukuro. I am betting he NEVER serves any time in prison.
As I said recently, I DESPISE two systems of justice: one for the wealthy / connected and one for everyone else!
ksteer
I am actually extremely interested where you live. Yes there are still buses that are quite old, but generally they exist in more countryside fleets than they do in large urban centers. But in the grand scheme of things, Japanese buses are pretty new.
Though I must say, I have ridden on some of those coal burners as well, quite a sick inducing experience. I have yet to see a driver get a gear every time they shift.
nandakandamanda
For those complaining he was not punished enough, this poor bus driver probably had no powerful labor union to interpret the laws, attack the working and traffic environment, and to back him up.
nandakandamanda
What rgcivilian1 said above, especially the last three lines.
coskuri
Or just tired. How much was his workload ? Probably too much for any age. In your 60's, you recover less than in your 20's.