SweenyTodd comments

Why would any decent parents let their kids be out at 1 am?

Because decent parents are not jailors. Because Japan is not as dangerous as Colombia.

I will bet you have no recollection of any other teen in Japan getting hit by a car so late at night. Yet here you are going on about idiots and decency and how it should be illegal to let teenagers out after 10. Reactionary. Keeping youth in a box only teaches them what the inside of a box looks like. I had the run of the town at all hours at 15. I learned a lot. I enjyed life. Consider those.

ca1ic0cat:In general people look better with their clothes on.

Not sure how you could possibly know this is true, but don't you think people would take better care of their bodies if they did not have clothes to cover up the fact they don't take of their bodies?

DickMorris: Nudity should be criminalised in public, it os for vile poeple.

I am not sure the word vile means what you think it means. Simple nudity has not killed or injured anyone to date, except maybe some people who stressed themselves to death over it. Relax a little. Enjoy life.

WilliB: Ignoring the murder part for a moment, isn´t this pretty close to a "partial birth abortion"

One of my teachers once said that there are no stupid questions. Obviously, he was wrong.

"Walking naked everywhere"? Not quite sure what that means. In the onsen area, from pool to pool? In the lounge? On the street?

WilliB: Both of his hands were bound with a cord which was also tied around his neck. "

If that sentence was ever in the article, its gone now.

How stupid! If you want to keep a population sedate, you give them all the porn they want! Just look at Japan and other countries! The amount of oppression and government corruption they will tolerate has only seemed to go UP during the decades long road to loosening the porn restrictions.

Also, some studies show that rape rates go down. Probably also the sexual frequency rates go down. And the sexual knowledge/ proficiency/ control rates most likely go up. And China needs that last one really bad. They seem to know how to make babies but many seem to not how to not make babies!

As far as I can see, this is just stupid all around. Congratulations China! You get my "all around stupid idea of the month" award.

What to say about the drunk driver? Not much we can say about him really because we know even less about his situation. How drunk was he? Maybe his wife can tell us? We can say he is a jerk for running, that is for sure. But we can also blame the government for that. Their policies ensure that large numbers of people run. People can and do drive just fine after drinking up to certain limits. It may not be popular, but its the truth.

The old rules of having alcohol limits made far more sense. Instead of changing those, they should have made sure that drivers don't get punished if a pedestrian is the one at fault, and usually, they are. Not speeding helps. Not drinking helps. Being aware helps. But ultimately, its pedestrians that recklessly blunder into the way of cars, and drivers are made to suffer for it, and suffer a lot.

So now you get this double whammy. You get punished even if the pedestrian was the truly reckless one. You get it even worse even if you were drinking within your limits (not saying this guy was. Maybe he wasn't). Double your unfair whammies and double your runners. Its not good for anyone except maybe the amount of fines the government can collect. Yet, people will support it tooth and nail, just because its popular to do so. Government add campaigns have had their effect on small minds. People don't care so long as its not them being squeezed but someone else. Your turn may come. Plenty of reckless pedestrians in this country so good luck out there. And stay away from those whiskey chocolates!

It must be really really hard to adopt if you are going to resort to this!

Its amazing a person can get by for 27 years without being found to be a dangerous mental case sooner.

fusedentropy: Actually, you're taking some liberty at suggesting the boy had a means of escape - Unless you know something I don't. Streets in Japan can be pretty narrow and with curves in them. So, it may not be that unbelievable that we wasn't able to get out of the way

If 99.9 percent of the time a matador can get out of the way of bull that suddenly charges, I firmly believe that any human with any sense and functioning legs can get out of the way of a single car steadily coming down the road 99.9 percent of the time. It is remotely possible that the school gate was closed and the road in front had no sidewalk with walls on either side and was so narrow that there was space for only one car and nothing else. Its also possible that the walled off narrow road was curved to the point that you could not see a car coming or its headlights and lets say it was a hybrid car so it was quiet too. Add to that the idea that the car was traveling really fast and darn steady between those narrow walls despite the driver being drunk.

Possible? Remotely. So remotely I don't think its even worth talking about. A pedestrian has all the advantages. Getting out of the way of a car is dead simple unless it is swerving and weaving or careening out of control and going off the road. And almost always there is a place for a pedestrian to go. Cars are easy to see, hear, and their courses are highly predictable. Pedestrians start and stop on a dime, and with two strides can clear one lane. There is no excuse for getting yourself hit by a car except being blind and deaf too. Dumb does not qualify as an excuse unless you are like seven years old.

also you got the deer in the headlight reaction too.

That would be dumb. And at 15, not an excuse I would accept.

Gaijin usually criticize what is different from their way of thinking - as if your way is the only way.

Lots of people do that, not only gaijin. But its a fair statement all the same. We all know that all if not most posters here a gaijin, and they do just that.

They might be moving slowly in applying justice to this crazy, but they sure did move fast in restricting knife lengths! Imagine if every time anything bad happened, a new restriction was put in place. A car accident=ban all cars. A kid falls down a well=all wells get filled in. Reactionary nonsense. This might have captured the imagination of the country, but its still a one-off incident. Move along.

But anyway, I would rather they take their time with his trial than give us reactionary justice too. He should spend his life in jail anyway. No hurry to hang him either. It won't change anything.

cody7799: The boy wasn't drunk.

You weren't there. The article does not say he wasn't. So we don't know. But it would go a long way in explaining how an apparently healthy 15 year old managed to fail to see or hear a car coming, you know, while standing in a place where even little kids know to stay alert.

Whether the driver was ripped out of his gourd or just a little tipsy, it does not change the fact the boy could easily have saved himself. Even your explanations don't account for the fact that cars are not cats that suddenly pounce on you from out of nowhere. You have to be more crippled than just tired not to be able to get out the way. Its just a few steps to safety. I think this kid was impaired upstairs to allow himself to get hit.

Also, what kind of school has people prepping for a festival at midnight?

The kind of school that is in a country that is still pretty safe to do such a thing. There used to be a day when being at out night was pretty common and safe, even for teenagers, just about anywhere. It still is here, even though sometimes stuff happens. Stuff happens in broad daylight too you know. I hope the school will go on as they were. Had this kid been just a little brighter, the drunk driver would have just passed by without incident. Honestly, I think a sober driver probably could have hit him too. He really must not have been paying any attention at all to get hit by a car like this.

He seems like an upstanding student.

How do you arrive at that conclusion?

In case any of you out there missed the memo: STAY AWAY FROM NORTH KOREA. I would guess that these two got the memo, but ignored it, and so, I am not so quick to suggest spending our tax money on them. It all depends on if they actually entered the Hermit Kingdom or not.

I hope he recovers, and learns to open his eyes and ears and how to check the road before jumping into the middle of it in the middle of the night while wearing dark clothes. Was he drunk too? Or just high on life?

Drunk driver? I don't know how much he drank. But everybody knows that after just one beer you are liable to poke out your own eye just brushing your teeth! Ridiculous! I doubt his wife even noticed our young fool standing still in the road. But I should not upset anybodies PC brain wiring by suggesting there might be more to this than car+alchohol=accident. Seems to be all the factors most human brains can handle these days!