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Mother, daughter killed after being hit by truck on Chugoku Expressway

13 Comments

A 49-year-old woman and her 21-year-old daughter were killed after they were hit by a semi-trailer in a freak accident that occurred on the Chugoku Expressway in Tsuyama, Okayama Prefecture, on Wednesday night.

According to police, the incident occurred at around 8:15 p.m. The two women, Mika Nakamura, and her her daughter Ami, were driving along the expressway when they ran over a large truck tire lying in the center of the lane, Fuji TV reported. The impact damaged the front of their car and they stopped.

The two women walked over to the shoulder of the expressway. Ami then called police to report the accident. While she was on the phone, the semi-trailer also ran over the tire, flipped and skidded on its side, hitting the two women, and sending them over the guardrail.

The woman were taken to hospital where they were pronounced dead on arrival. The truck driver sustained light injuries.

Police said the truck driver told them he saw the car stopped on the expressway but did not see the tire. The section of the expressway where the accident occurred is poorly lit.

Police said Thursday they are trying to determine how the tire came to be on the expressway. They believe it may be a spare tire that fell from the bottom of a truck.

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13 Comments
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@Jonathan

Did you see the reconstruction on the evening news?

There was absolutely no suggestion that excess speed was a factor in what was a horrible, unfortunate tragedy.

And the car certainly wasn't "wrecked".

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@lucabrasi

So you see a stopped wrecked car and all you do is carry on driving trying to pass by ?

Speed, only speed is to blame. If any warning, drop speed !

A truck is a huge and deadly mass compare to any standard car.

Story proves me right and I just learnt it from a road safety training program.

I am saying in view of info, all was not done to avoid lost of lives.

RIP again

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

@Jonathan

He said he saw the car, no problem. But then he hit an almost-invisible spare wheel, which sent him out of control and toppled his lorry....

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Warning flashlights ? Portable warning sign ahead of car ? Fluorescent jacket for at least one car occupant ?

All this compulsory in some countries which I believe could have saved their life.

Truck driver was driving too fast if he could not keep control of his vehicle while seeing a car stopped before ahead.

Ami-san and Mika-san, RIP

-6 ( +1 / -7 )

Originally on the news they reported that the Kei car was driving in the overtaking lane, (the truck too) but perhaps you are right Cleo.

In this updated and rather more detailed article it confirms there was a wheel inside the tyre. The road they report was dark, poorly lit and it was raining, making visibility bad as you say.

https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20171020-00000000-mai-soci

0 ( +0 / -0 )

why they left their car stopped and blocking the fast lane

They showed the car on the news last night, the front was bashed in and the front left wheel more or less separated from the chassis, it looked horrendous. No way it could have been driven anywhere.

From the reconstruction of the accident they showed, it appeared to me that the tyre was in the middle of the road (the centre lane) and the impact knocked the kei car into the fast lane. I'm not sure about that, though.

They also showed a driving simulation, in which a black tyre/wheel on a road surface at night was invisible to a driver until he was on top of it. Scary.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

DaDude, although it does say タイヤ tire in the J press, this word is often used to mean a whole wheel and tire together, as Harry_Gatto says above. The spare wheel hanging underneath must have dropped off an earlier truck, not just a 'tire' as in the article says above.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

When you have an accident on the highway, everything requires quick decision-making. No one is prepared for this type of occurrence. If anyone is to blame is the poor mechanic or truck owner that didn't secure the spare tire correctly.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

The police are not quite sure where they were standing, whether inside or as is recommended outside the guardrail. Footage shows the guardrail badly damaged, and a sort of drop or cliff right outside the guardrail. The articulated truck would have sideswiped eveything and hit them anyway. Apparently the daughter had phoned the police to report it, and when asked for the plate number had offered to go and look. No, stay there, she was advised, and then the phone went dead.

The lesson I took from this horrific accident is to wait upstream of your abandoned car, not where they were, slightly downstream. The questions I have are why they and the truck were travelling in the fast lane, and why they left their car stopped and blocking the fast lane. None of the news reports seems clear on this, some saying that the fallen wheel so damaged their car that it would not go any further. The front left wheel does seem to have been broken by the impact, and if it was a front-while drive then I guess they could not move it at all...

3 ( +3 / -0 )

They did. The truck went straight through the guard rail. Poor things, they did everything right.

Not according to this article which states -

..............and sending them over the guardrail.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Police said Thursday they are trying to determine how the tire came to be on the expressway.

Poor truck maintenance maybe?

You always see all kind of things in back of trucks just lying on the truck bed.

The most scary are big pieces of wood.

This is a really sad event.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

They did. The truck went straight through the guard rail. Poor things, they did everything right.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Not just a tyre but a complete wheel and tyre, big difference.

If they had climbed over the guard rail then maybe they would not have been hit by the truck, who knows.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

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