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A five-year-old boy died after being hit by a car as he walked home from preschool in Imizu, Toyama Prefecture, on Friday.
According to police, the incident occurred at around 6 p.m., Fuji TV reported. The boy, identified as Yamato Kubo, was walking by himself along a narrow road with no sidewalk when he was hit from the front by the car driven by an 18-year-old girl.
The boy was taken to hospital where he died about 90 minutes later.
Police said the girl who was driving her parents' car had just received her driver’s license earlier this month.
The accident occurred about 40 meters from the boy’s home.
© Japan Today
13 Comments
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Goodlucktoyou
This is too sad. Two lives ruined and two families lives ruined. Too sad.
Strangerland
There is no way to tell from the article whether he was alone or with someone. Doubtful he was alone though.
maybeperhapsyes
Poor wee lad.
Poor lass.
Crappy situation to not have somewhere safe for people to walk.
kohakuebisu
What a terrible story. 5 y.o. at this time of year means the boy was almost certainly nenchu, i.e., he'd just finished the second year of hoikuen. That's still a full year younger than kids starting school, who will still be accompanied by older ones when walking to school, at least at first.
You can see the road on this NHK report. There is not enough information but it looks like police have marked the actual road, not the pedestrian edge of it.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/lnews/toyama/3063312911.html
Takuma7
Where was someone older to walk him home? Too young to be walking alone.
Strangerland
Where does it stay he was walking alone?
albaleo
From the article, "was walking by himself along a narrow road".
Strangerland
It’s been updated. It didn’t say that initially.
albaleo
I hate when that happens.
JT, how about adding an "updated" mark with a time stamp when you do this?
JohnDigsJapan
Walking home from preschool at 6pm? Isn't that a little late for preschool to let out? R.I.P. little one....
kohakuebisu
The Japanese story said the parent went to pick him up but he said he wanted to walk home ("hitori de kaeru") and the parent let him. They must be distraught.
fwiw, I ran out into the road and was run over in front of my mother when I was six. I am lucky to be alive, though I usually forget it. Anyway, having a parent around doesn't mean accidents can't happen, there are just less likely.
Strangerland
That's so sad. But also irresponsible - if the road home was such that it didn't have sidewalks, and the kid was five years old, there is no way they should have let him walk by himself.
But I'm sure that lesson has been well learned by them now. Poor parents, I can't think of much worse than losing a child.