crime

Truck driver arrested over fatal hit-and-run

14 Comments

Police in Gunma Prefecture have arrested a 46-year-old man on suspicion of dangerous driving resulting in death after the semi-trailer he was driving hit and killed a 21-year-old man riding a bicycle in Tokyo.

According to police, the incident occurred at around 11 p.m. on Friday at an intersection in Koto Ward, Sankei Shimbun reported. Police said Yuya Shinada, a part-time worker, was hit by the semi-trailer driven by Tomoyuki Numata who kept going.

Shinada was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Police arrested Numata, who is from Tamamura in Gunma Prefecture, after identifying the semi-trailer through street surveillance camera footage. Police contacted the company that owns the vehicle and learned Numata was driving it that night. He was quoted as saying he thought he might have hit something but did not think it was a person.

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14 Comments
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IMO the way many rude JNs drive here etc, a person can get tore up, easily. I've seen huge trucks, and cars run red lights, Taxi drivers, couriers, road hog mammy chariots, speeding down neighborhood streets, and people crossing the street almost getting clipped by anxious drivers making a turn where the pedestrian clearly has the green man signal to walk. Not to mention the a past incident of (8 injured after car, motorbike collide in Yokohama; car driver arrested) Commuting can be perilous if not very watchful these days.

11 ( +11 / -0 )

He was quoted as saying he thought he might have hit something but did not think it was a person.

We hear this so often, it must be a multiple choice interrogation.

Is another option: 'I was drunk at the time and can't remember?'

10 ( +10 / -0 )

Well, it WAS a person and if he had stopped, the guy might still be alive.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

Truck drivers are far and away the most dangerous drivers I’ve encountered in Japan. As a cyclist I’ve nearly been run over a couple of times and on both occassions it was because of a truck driver ignoring the rules, and also on both occasions I was the one who took action to avoid the collision, not the trucker. Not sure but I’ve always assumed that their jobs highly incentivize them to get from point A to B in as little time as possible, making many of them ignore common sense safety precautions and drive very aggressively. If there ever was an industry that needed to be cracked down on, that one is it.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

“I thought I might have hit something but didn’t think it was a person”

Didnt bother to stop and check?

8 ( +8 / -0 )

Sucks for this truck driver that he wasn’t an ex top-bureaucrat or he wouldn’t have been arrested.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

@ rainyday & @jerseydevil theres no doubt that truckers here are the most dangerour motor vehicle operators as I commute by bicycle in and out of tokyo daily using the shoulder of route 6, but its not until I'm back in the burbs and on the side streets where you encounter kids of all ages either blocking any throughway in their typical "wall" formation whether on foot or bicycle, almost always eyes glued to smartphones.

Knock on wood, never been more than squeezed out of a lane or cut off by a trucker in 20 years but have had dozens of wipeouts from panicking last second reacting kids.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Um. The 21-year-old man was too young to die. RIP.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

"Truck drivers are far and away the most dangerous drivers I’ve encountered in Japan"

I remember reading before that many of them are on that "ice"

4 ( +4 / -0 )

@King Of Pringles

" you encounter kids of all ages either blocking any throughway in their typical "wall" formation whether on foot or bicycle."

Their adults do that crap too, and if you call them out on it or ring a bike bell, they get highly indignant about it, with the backing of the kobanites. Just shows you another aspect of the real quality of public life in J-land

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Drivers in Japan are not sanctioned for a lot of dangerous driving.Driving over chevrons, tailgating and sudden changes of direction with no indication are common but rarely punished

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I was hit by someone the FIRST day I rode to work on my bicycle, to avoid having to wait for first morning trains. (I've been riding for 40 years)

The guy SAT in his CAR, and DIDN'T come over to me...the AMBULANCE DRIVER across the street, that WITNESSED it all, justs stared...until I had literally DRAGGED my blood soaked self and shoes off the street and motioned him to take me to the hospital.

NO one that witnessed it (street, FULL OF Traffic) lifted a finger to assist me...absolutely the "Real Japan".

2 ( +2 / -0 )

We do not know the details of this story. Semitrailers are huge vehicles with lots of dead angles and areas that become very dangerous when they turn. We do not know where the bicycle was and what the driver notices.

-9 ( +0 / -9 )

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