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Police in Osaka have arrested a man on suspicion of attempting to steal a taxi on the expressway.
According to police, the incident occurred at around 3 a.m. Friday, Fuji TV reported. The man, Kazuma Tachibana, of no fixed occupation and who lives in Kobe, was sitting in the back seat of the taxi as it went along the Hanshin Expressway in Nishiyodogawa Ward.
In the incident, part of which was recorded on the taxi’s dashcam, Tachibana climbed into the front passenger seat, grabbed at the driver and told him to stop so he could find a toilet.
The driver stopped the taxi, got out and sought help from a car following them. He asked the driver of that car to call police. Tachibana ran away but was found soon after at a nearby convenience store by a police patrol.
Police said Tachibana was intoxicated when he was detained and that he denied any intent to steal the taxi. The taxi driver was not hurt.
© Japan Today
8 Comments
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ShinkansenCaboose
Taxi driver should have taken him to the conbini!
Mocheake
Look, when you have to go you have to go!
Concerned Citizen
Relatively minor incidents like this make national news in Japan. What a great country to live in.
shogun36
That's when you carry some pepper spray and a bat.
snowymountainhell
It reads that he ‘ran’ off, not ‘drove’ off with the taxi. This story reads more like an unwelcome trespassing to the front seat, obstruction of the driver’s safe operation AND, an attempted ‘hijacking(?)’ of the taxi.
(Not like the guy 2 that actually ‘stole’ the police car from 2 officers Oct 14 during a traffic stop to assist his stalled van on the Kyushu Expressway in Fukuoka) :
Will now humbly yield to ‘the more learned’ of our fellow readers and those well-versed in “Japan’s Taxi Safety Laws” to answer IF taxi passengers are still allowed in front seats ?
Coulda been
Did they find him in the toilet at the convenience (excuse the pun) store?
kyushubill
Just do your thing where you are dude. No need for the drama. Be a man.
Jacko
Grand Theft Auto, is that you?