Olympic medalist referred to prosecutors for car collision, injuries

Hiraoka admitted to causing the collision but was not arrested after police deemed him not to be a flight risk.

Oh, the irony

So the critical point here is - what was his blood alcohol content(BAC)?

I know in the case of traffic accidents in Japan, no level of alcohol is permissible, but it's important to know if the driver was "really" drunk or his level had yet to drop to zero.

A BAC of less than 0.03% is permissible(half a can of beer or so), but in the case of infringements / accidents the level is 0.

IMO the term "drunk driving" should be applied to cases where the BAC is over the set limit and not the result of some minor residual amounts being recorded.

It appears from the article the cause of the accident was inattentiveness - watching the crowd.

And the book should be thrown at him for fleeing the scene - alcohol or no alcohol.

The most problematic issue in all of of this for me is he was not detained.

If it was you or me in an accident where alcohol was involved and we fled the scene, we wouldn't be sleeping in a nice bed in Mum's house.

He did nothing outside touching a vehicle.

The lady in the touched car did the wrong doing !

It was only then that I ap sure the injuries came out.

In my country, many many don't stop for limited touching to other cars.

If he slept 5 hours and woke up, he was probably very far from drunk.

Why not tell the result of the analyzer ?

Taku Hiraoka, a 24-year-old Japanese snowboarder who won bronze in the men's halfpipe at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, was allegedly driving around 9:55 a.m. on Sept 29 in Katsuragi, Nara Prefecture under the influence of alcohol and fled the scene after hitting a minicar, causing minor injuries to the 40-year-old female driver, and five others, between the ages of 4 and 85, who were near the scene.

Police also sent to prosecutors on Tuesday papers concerning the woman driver of the minicar, who has been suspected of causing injuries through negligence to the five people nearby when she confused the accelerator for the brake.

It sounds like they're trying to place blame on the woman driver and make this washed up drunk has been look innocent!

sounds like they're trying to place blame on the woman driver and make this washed up drunk has been look innocent!

Er... no. It sounds like it's her fault. And his bad luck to have been drinking the night before. That's the risk with alcohol in your system. Even if you drive safely, there is no accounting for someone else causing an accident. He can be charged with being in an alcohol-related accident even if he was at zero fault otherwise.