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Truck driver, looking at smartphone, rearends bus, injuring 7

23 Comments

A truck rammed into the back of a bus Friday morning in Chikuzen, Fukuoka Prefecture, injuring seven passengers on the bus.

The accident occurred at around 6:20 a.m. on National Route 386.

Police quoted the 32-year-old truck driver as saying he had been looking at his smartphone seconds before the accident and failed to notice that the bus had stopped to pick up passengers, TV Asahi reported.

There were 20 passengers on the bus at the time. Seven of them -- aged between 15 and 63 -- received light injuries.

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23 Comments
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Idiot. I really get angry when I see the people behind me on the road doing this. I see this every single day. And not just one but many.

8 ( +10 / -2 )

I hope the police will fine him really really hard for this. There is just simply no excuse for this kind of stupidity.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

I ride the bus daily, and see truck drivers texting every day - on the expressways, going 100km. Disgusting I rarely see car drivers text on expressways. .

2 ( +4 / -2 )

When I catch drivers texting or doing whatever with their handheld device I will honk at them or if on foot or on a bike, I will whack their car to wake them up as to where they are!

In most parts of the world now, smart phone distracted drivers killing and injuring others is now exceeding drink driving related deaths and injuries. It's more than time that we start getting angry as hell and start treating these menaces in the same fashion as we treat drunks behind the wheel.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Since he's clearly addicted, taking away his phone would probably be a more severe punishment than revoking his driver's license.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Come on Japan, time to stomp on this problem. Stop asking people and start issuing fines

4 ( +4 / -0 )

It's difficult to believe that using your mobile phone while driving is illegal cos every second driver is doing it! And, if they are not using their mobile phone they are, reading a newspaper draped across the steering wheel, putting on make up, shaving or watching their kids bounce around the car unrestrained. Then, you get the very special ones who are doing two or three of these things at the same time. They are very special multi-tasking people! Idiots!

1 ( +5 / -4 )

They are very special multi-tasking people! Idiots!

And then when they cut across the path of other drivers they act the aggrieved party when they get tooted at. LOL

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Stop asking people and start issuing fines

Issuing fines? How about taking licenses away....the fines are minimal.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Doesn't matter if it was a smartphone or a regular cell phone, or a map, or a navigation system, or anything else -- the fact that the man was not paying attention to the road is the problem. At least in this instance there were only light injuries and the driver who rear-ended the bus has a chance to learn from his mistakes.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Well, yes, except that of the millions of people doing this every day in Japan, accidents likes this are so few. There should be many more on the face of it.

The article says 'rammed' into the bus, but looking at the damage on TV (smashed rear window, some denting), it is more like 'crunched' into it. Luckily mostly a few scrapes and scratches, but some whiplash.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

He should be operating the truck and not the smart phone. Driving is a dangerous adventure if you can't see what's ahead of you. I've seen truck drivers reading comics while driving.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

I once saw, from a bus, a driver watching an adult movie on his navigation/TV/screen thing.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

This is really something the local constabulary should crack down on. I see this all time in Tokyo traffic, and it is so dangerous. Cellphones and driving do not mix.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

This is really something the local constabulary should crack down on

They should - but don't. They'd rather yell at pedestrians for jaywalking, check bicycle registration - and beat confessions out of suspects. Having said that - pure lack of awareness of ones surroundings is epidemic in Japan

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Drivers in Japan are among the worst in the developed world, but their truck drivers reach unprecedented heights of dangerous, irresponsible driving.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

GPS senses you at moving at 40 kms or something and shuts off the screen but then what happens if youre a passenger right? Dunno...daydream lol

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Japan's government could pay off it's national debts pretty quickly if only they would start actively enforcing and fining offenders like this. Plenty of jobs for the unemployed as undercover traffic patrol officers too.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I think the problem of distracted driving from reading a cellphone screen is particularly bad with smaller-screen smartphones, especially the iPhone 4/4S and 5/5S/5C models. People running the turn-by-turn navigation mode of Apple Maps or Google Maps or using navigation apps like Waze on these older phones often squint their eyes to read the map display, and this causes a huge distraction problem while driving even if you mount the phone on commercially-available dash mounts.

I myself have a larger-screen cellphone (120 mm diagonal screen size) and when using a dash mount, I can still comfortably read the screen on quick glance to see where I'm going.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Japanese drivers in general and truck drivers in particular are are crap at driving. Speeding, smoking, on the phone, doing dog knows what, except caring about driving safely. Had Japan had a police force worth its salt, there'd been some checking up on these uneducated clowns, but since we all know business comes before people here, it will never happen.

Damn, it's disgusting how incompetently they enforce good driving habits here...

3 ( +5 / -2 )

I would disagree that truckies are bad drivers. I have been riding motorbikes daily here for 15 years and have never had a close call with a truck, in fact I find them very professional, courteous and accommodating on the roads, unlike other bikers who are by far the worst and most dangerous fools I see out there. It seems that about half of the accidents I see involve bikes, especially the little gentsuki 50cc ones. And it has nothing to do with smartphones.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

They had a law many years back that gave tickets to drivers using their phones while driving. They enforced it for a couples months and all was back to the way it was.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

All the while people keep getting injured and dying......

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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