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Higashi-Ikebukuro runaway car crash

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The Higashi-Ikebukuro runaway car crash was a traffic crash that occurred on April 19, 2019, in Higashi Ikebukuro, Toshima, Tokyo, resulting in 2 deaths and 9 injuries.[1][2]

The crash occurred when an 87-year-old passenger car driver mistakenly stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake and entered an intersection hitting pedestrians and bicyclists.[2][3] In the aftermath of the incident, there was widespread protest throughout Japan at what was seen as special treatment for the perpetrator due to his status as a retired and decorated senior bureaucrat.

Overview

The crash site

At 12:25 p.m., April 19, 2019, Kozo Iizuka, the 87-year-old male driver of a Toyota Prius, and the retired Head of the Industrial Science and Technology Agency of the former Ministry of International Trade and Industry (now the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry), caused a traffic crash at an intersection near Tokyo Metro Higashi-Ikebukuro Station in the Higashi Ikebukuro district of Toshima ward, Tokyo.

The car he was driving ran red traffic lights, and hit several people on a pedestrian crossing, killing two (a mother and daughter) and injuring 12, including the driver himself and his wife, who was in the front passenger seat.

Iizuka, the driver, ran two red traffic lights, and the car's data recorder showed no record of him using the brake at any point during the incident.[4] Immediately after the crash, Iizuka telephoned his son, telling him that the accelerator didn't come back up and he had hit people.[5] However, an inspection carried out by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department found that nothing had been wrong with the car, and that the airbags had correctly deployed.[6]

It was first reported in the media that there had been 8 injuries (including Iizuka and his wife, who was riding with him) and 2 losses of life, but on April 24, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department announced that a further two people, another mother and daughter, had received light injuries. This made for a total of 12 injuries or fatalities.[7]

The driver, Iizuka, was already suffering from problems with his legs at the time of the crash, with the cause suspected by his doctors to be Parkinson's disease. Furthermore, when it was discovered that there had been nothing wrong with the accelerator, which Iizuka had blamed the crash for, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department determined that the crash had been caused by incorrect operation of the car by Iizuka himself.[8]

Seven months after the crash, on November 12, 2019, the Accident Investigation Bureau of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department filed papers with the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office charging Iizuka with violation of the Act on Punishment of Acts Inflicting Death or Injury on Others by Driving a Motor Vehicle, etc.[9] Almost three months later, on February 6, 2020, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office indicted Iizuka without arrest.[10]

Hearings for a criminal trial began on 8 October 2020, in which Iizuka continued to deny the charges, claiming that the car had malfunctioned, and saying that he had no memory of accelerating the car.[11][12][13] On 4 March 2021, an engineer from the car's manufacturer testified that they found no problems with the car's parts.[14][15]

At a trial on 15 July 2021, prosecutors sought 7 years imprisonment for Iizuka. In the end, he was sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment on 2 September 2021.[16]

The crash

The dashcam in the car driven by Iizuka captured the crash and its aftermath on video.

According to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, in the dashcam recording at the time of the crash, Iizuka's wife shouted "Watch out! What have you done?" as the car entered a leftward curve in the road, with Iizuka then saying "Oh, what's going on?" followed by the car crashing into the curb and metal guard rail at the left side of the road.[17] Footage from nearby security cameras showed that Iizuka then panicked, entering the intersection at a speed of almost 100 km/h (62 mph). The car hit a garbage truck from side on, overturning it, and then plowed into the many cyclists and pedestrians on the pedestrian crossing.

Following the crash, rather than immediately phoning the police, Iizuka phoned his son, telling him that the accelerator wouldn't come back, and that he had hit numerous people.

Iizuka explained that he had gone into the curve at a speed exceeding the 50 km/h (31 mph) speed limit because he was hurrying, afraid that he and his wife would be late for a booking they had made at a French restaurant. He had been weaving amongst traffic, changing lanes three times just before the crash in order to overtake other vehicles.[18]

The car rapidly accelerated after going through the red lights and by the time it fatally hit the mother and child was traveling at a speed of 96 km/h (60 mph).[19]

Petition for Iizuka's indictment

Flower offerings at the scene of the crash

The funeral for the two deceased, Mana Matsunaga, 31 years old, and her daughter Riko, 3 years old, took place on April 24, 2019. On the day of the funeral, the husband and father of the two deceased held a press conference where he announced that he was releasing images of the deceased to the public. He then held another press conference on July 18, 2019, where he announced the launch of a signature-collecting campaign seeking the indictment of Iizuka as the driver who caused their deaths. The campaign began on August 3 in Minami-Ikebukuro Park, where the daughter, Riko, had often played. By the time of its presentation to the Traffic Bureau of the Tokyo District Prosecutor's Office on September 20, 2019, the petition had gathered 391,136 signatures.[20]

Iizuka was subsequently indicted, but not arrested, and has retained his freedom of movement since then.[21]

Civil lawsuit

In October 2019, Takuya Matsunaga, the husband of the deceased woman and father of the child, brought a civil lawsuit against Iizuka, which is proceeding concurrently with the criminal prosecution. Matsunaga announced in January 2021 that civil proceedings had been launched.[22]

Effects of the incident

Allegations of special treatment

Standard police practice in Japan is to arrest suspects of crime at the time they are apprehended; and standard journalistic practice in Japan is to refer to suspects in a case with the noun "suspect" (容疑者, yogisha) suffixed to their surname, and without the usual honorific suffix of "san" or "sama". However, Iizuka was not arrested at the scene, or anytime thereafter, and was referred to in police reports and in the press as "Iizuka former official" or "Iizuka-san" rather than "Iizuka suspect." This led to criticism that Iizuka was being given special treatment because, being a retired senior bureaucrat, he was considered a "high-class citizen" (上級国民, joukyu kokumin).[23]

Investigators of the crash said that he was not arrested because he was also an injured party and was admitted to hospital. This meant that his case did not fulfil the requirement for arrest stipulated by the Rules of Criminal Procedure, which is that there be grounds for fearing that he might flee and/or destroy evidence. The investigators claimed that they had not established that he was an ex-bureaucrat until some time after the crash, and that online criticism of them was incorrect.[24]

Regarding the use of honorifics suffixed to Iizuka's name, instead of the usual suffix "suspect," the Asahi Shimbun newspaper explained it saying that it was "to convey that [Iizuka] was a public servant with social influence",[25] and the Nishi Nippon Shinbun said that it reflected their "clear rule that people not yet arrested should be referred to using an honorific suffix or their work-related title."[26]

It is noted that following referral of the case to prosecutors on 12 November 2019, some media organs began referring to Iizuka as "the suspect, Iizuka" (Iizuka-yogisha).[27] Professor Yutaka Ōishi of Keio University said regarding the debate over Iizuka's title in the media: "I believe that criticism has been mounting based on the view that has taken hold that the police and the mass media have come together to protect the man [i.e., Iizuka] because he is a former bureaucrat."[28]

The author, Akira Tachibana, commented as follows: "Saying that there is no need to arrest [Iizuka] because he does not satisfy the stipulation that there be grounds for fearing that he might flee and/or destroy evidence is what human rights lawyers have long asserted. Yet, most arrests are made without giving any recognition to this protestation by such lawyers. Thus, in this case, one can only wonder what it was in this case that led to the snap decision to deem arrest unnecessary."[29]

The treatment which Iizuka received gave rise to the popular term "high-class citizen," which was nominated for that year's "'You Can' New Word/Popular Phrase Prize."[30] "High class citizen" was also selected by Shogakukan publishing house as the "Word of the Month" for May for its Daijisen dictionary. Furthermore, "high class citizen" received the third highest number of nominations for the "2019 Prize for New Phrase Selected by Daijisen."[31]

In analyzing the reactions to the incident, Toyo Keizai commentator Atsushi Manabe writes that Iizuka's words and actions after the crash "added fuel to the fire", and as a result the case represents to people how unapologetic liars and coldblooded psychopaths succeed more than regular honest people, which goes against the zeitgeist of the common people. This "victory of brazen shamelessness" represents a loss of morals, and this is why people feel disgust and anger at it.[32][33][34]

Manabe also writes that to many people, the case represents how Japanese law no longer functions as it should, with criminals being able to get away with their crimes by using their privileged positions in society.[35]

Japanese Wikipedia article controversy

Attention was also brought to Iizuka's Japanese Wikipedia article (ja:飯塚幸三), which goes in-depth into his accomplishments, but has no mention of the incident. A small group of users constantly removed edits regarding the incident, before finally protecting the article so that nobody else could edit it but the administrators of Japanese Wikipedia. When brought up on the article's talk page, they cited this as being "the result of discussion by the community". Though the topic has been brought up multiple times since, with twelve of the thirteen topics on the talk page as of 8 October 2020 questioning the decision, all such attempts at discussion were answered with the same users saying that the topic has already been discussed and decided upon by "the community".[36]

The problems with the Wikipedia article were widely discussed on social media, and subsequently reported on by the Japanese news media, primarily by smaller web-based media, but also by some major outlets such as Asahi Shimbun, which questioned the decision of the Wikipedia users. As of 25 March 2021, the page remains protected with no mention of the incident.[37][38]

As of July 16 2022, Japanese edition is written in his name.

Voluntary surrender of driving licence by the elderly

The case renewed attention to the problem of crashs being caused by elderly drivers[39][40] which was a pre-existing topic for several years.[41] It was reported that in the aftermath of the crash, more elderly people voluntarily surrendered their driver licenses.[42] For example, Fuji News Network reported that in the week following the crash, as many as 1,200 people in the Tokyo metropolitan district voluntarily surrendered their licence.[43] Following this, it was reported that, according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, in the half-year following the crash, 42,252 people voluntarily surrendered their driving licence, which was 80% more people than for the same period in the preceding year.[44] Iizuka's driving licence was revoked by the Tokyo Metropolitan Public Safety Commission in May 2019.[45]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Human error suspected in fatal car crash in Tokyo". Kyodo News. 20 April 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
  2. ^ a b "池袋暴走、元院長を書類送検 過失致死傷の疑い". 日本経済新聞 (in Japanese). 日本経済新聞社. 2019-11-12. Archived from the original on 2020-03-09. Retrieved 2020-03-09.
  3. ^ "「池袋の母子死亡事故、10月初公判 車暴走の元院長」『日本経済新聞』". 日本経済新聞. 2020-09-16. Archived from the original on 2020-09-29. Retrieved 2020-09-29.
  4. ^ "赤信号を２回無視、ドライブレコーダーが記録" [Ran red lights twice, drive recorder records]. Asahi Shimbun. 20 April 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
  5. ^ "87-year-old driver in Tokyo car crash that killed mom, daughter suspected of mistakenly pressing gas pedal". Japan Times. 21 April 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
  6. ^ "ブレーキ痕なく、アクセルペダルの障害もなし 池袋事故" [Ikebukuro Accident: No skid marks, and no faulty accelerator]. Asahi Shimbun. 20 April 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
  7. ^ "新たに30代母と2歳女児の軽傷が判明 死傷者は計12人に 池袋暴走事故" [Ikebukuro Runaway Car Accident: Discovery of a further two (lightly) injured: a 30-year-old mother and 2-year-old daughter, bringing the injury/fatality total to 12]. Asahi Shimbun. 24 April 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
  8. ^ "「池袋暴走」事故で元通産省幹部を書類送検、注目される刑事処分の行方" [Ikebukuro Runaway Car Accident: Charges filed against former MITI division chief: the course of the closely watched criminal prosecution]. Diamond Online. 12 November 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
  9. ^ "Amid favoritism uproar, ex-top Japan bureaucrat, 88, referred to prosecutors over deadly crash". The Japan Times. 12 November 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
  10. ^ "Ex-bureaucrat indicted without arrest over fatal car crash in Tokyo". The Mainichi. 6 February 2020. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
  11. ^ 元院長が起訴内容を否認 2020-10-08 Kyodo News
  12. ^ 東京・池袋暴走「車の異常」　８９歳被告、無罪を主張　東京地裁初公判 2020-10-09 Mainichi Shimbun
  13. ^ “上級国民”池袋暴走事故「否認」の衝撃　車のせい？裁判の行方と思わぬ余波 2020-10-08 Asahi Shimbun
  14. ^ "池袋暴走事故裁判 技術者「車両の部品は正しく機能」│TBS News「1万通の手紙 池袋暴走事故が問うもの」".
  15. ^ "池袋暴走事故、車に異常はあったのか。メーカーの事故解析担当が証言【第6回公判・詳報】". 3 March 2021.
  16. ^ "Ex-elite bureaucrat given 5-yr jail term over fatal Tokyo car crash". Mainichi Daily News. 2021-09-02. Retrieved 2021-09-02.
  17. ^ "池袋暴走、ドラレコに音声 男性「あー、どうしたんだろう」同乗の妻の問いに" [Ikebukuro Runaway Car Accident: Dashcam Voice Recording of Male Asking Wife Riding with Him "Oh, What's Going On?!]. The Mainichi. 19 April 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
  18. ^ "池袋プリウス暴走事故の飯塚幸三が暴走していた本当の理由と新事実が判明！「フレンチに遅れそうだった」" [We Seemed to Be Running Late for a French Restaurant: New Facts Emerge About the Real Reasons Behind the Fatal Runaway Car Accident In Ikebukuro in which Kozo Iizuka was Driving a Toyota Prius]. SOCOM Hideout. 12 November 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  19. ^ "池袋暴走事故裁判"衝突直前は時速９６キロ"、会見では「民事提訴」「被害者参加制度」も" ['The Ikebukuro Runaway Car Incident Court Case "Speed of 96 km/h before the collision", Civil Prosecution and Victim Participation Announced at Press Conference']. Yahoo Japan News. 19 January 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  20. ^ "Family of mother and daughter killed in Tokyo crash submit petition seeking driver's indictment". The Japan Times. 21 September 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
  21. ^ "池袋暴走事故 民事裁判でも提訴」" [Ikebukuro Runaway Car Incident: Civil Proceedings to Also be Brought]. Yahoo News. 8 October 2020. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  22. ^ "池袋暴走事故 民事裁判でも提訴」" [Ikebukuro Runaway Car Incident: Civil Proceedings to Also be Brought]. Yahoo News. 19 January 2021. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  23. ^ "Uproar online after 'elite' elderly driver who caused fatal crash not arrested". The Mainichi. 5 May 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
  24. ^ "捜査関係者「ネット上の批判は把握している」 池袋暴走" [Investigators of Ikebukuro Runaway Car Accident say they are well aware of online criticism]. The Sankei News. 23 April 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  25. ^ "「なぜ容疑者と呼ばない」臆測生んだ メディアの課題は" [Why is he not referred to as a 'suspect'? A media issue that has given rise to speculation]. The Asahi Shimbun. 26 April 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  26. ^ "「上級国民」…" [High Class Citizen...]. Nishi Nippon Shinbun. 3 May 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  27. ^ "《池袋暴走事故》飯塚幸三容疑者の"現在"を取材するも妻が「お断りします！」" [The Ikebukuro Runaway Car Accident: Wife of the Suspect Iizuka Kozo Says 'We Refuse!' to Reporters Trying to Cover His Current Situation]. Yahoo News Japan. 6 January 2020. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  28. ^ "(Media Times) 任意捜査、報道では「元院長」 池袋母子死亡事故の運転者" [(Media Times) Voluntary Investigation, the Media Refers to the Driver in the Ikebukuro Accident that Killed a Mother and Child as 'Former Chief.']. Asahi Shimbun. 27 April 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  29. ^ "飯塚容疑者 服役なしの可能性も…池袋暴走事故に続く特別待遇" [Ongoing Special Treatment in the Wake of the Ikebukuro Runaway Car Accident: The Possibility that the Suspect, Iizuka, Will Not Be Imprisoned]. Josei Jishin (Kodansha). 21 November 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  30. ^ "「令和」「上級国民」「タピる」「にわかファン」 流行語大賞、候補の３０語発表" ['Reiwa,' 'High-Class Citizen,' 'Tapiru': The 30 Nominations for the Popular Phrase Prize Announced]. The Sankei News. 6 November 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  31. ^ "大辞泉の新語大賞2019は「イートイン脱税」に決定" ['Eat-In Tax Evasion' Chosen as Daijisen New Word of the Year 2019]. Otakuma Keizei Shimbun. 2 December 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  32. ^ 飯塚被告はこれまでも「アクセルが戻らなかった」などと自身の過失を否定する発言を繰り返しており、およそ半年後の11月にテレビの取材に対し、「安全な車を開発するようにメーカーの方に心がけていただき、高齢者が安心して運転できるような、外出できるような世の中になってほしい」と語るなど、火に油を注ぐ事態をあえて作り出しているようなところがあった。'The suspect, Iizuka, has so far repeatedly denied that he was at fault, claiming, for example, that "the accelerator wouldn't come back up." Also, about half a year after the incident, in November, he said in a television interview that he "wanted car manufacturers to apply to themselves to developing safe cars and thus create the kind of environment where the elderly can drive with a sense of assurance, and where they can go outside of their homes." This and other such statements have served only to add fuel to the fire.' Manabe, Atsushi (14 October 2020). "池袋暴走｢上級国民批判｣異常なほど沸騰する訳" [Ikebukuro runaway: Why criticism of upper-class citizens is so strong]. Toyo Keizai. Retrieved 2020-10-16.
  33. ^ 正直に生きている者がかえって損をする、貧乏くじを引くような昨今の風潮であり、自らの利益のみを追求するがゆえに「嘘をつき通し、悪びれない」者が真っ先に出世し、経済的な成功を収める――いわば冷血漢のごときサイコパス的な人格で世渡りしたほうが生きやすい世界になっている現状への強烈な違和感である。'In today's world, the tendency is for those who live their lives honestly to actually lose out because of it and get the short end of the stick. There is something intensely unsettling about the current state of the world where inveterate liars and the brazenly shameless who seek nothing but their own gain are the ones who make it to the top, that is, where life becomes easier if you live it like a cold-blooded psychopath.' Manabe, Atsushi (14 October 2020). "池袋暴走｢上級国民批判｣異常なほど沸騰する訳" [Ikebukuro runaway: Why criticism of upper-class citizens is so strong]. Toyo Keizai. Retrieved 2020-10-16.
  34. ^ わたしたちはマスメディアが流す情報の断片から、「厚顔無恥の勝利」といったモラルハザード（倫理の欠如）の腐臭を嗅ぎとっていることは間違いないだろう。だからこそこの事件が特別なものに思えるのであり、不快感や怒りの感情が沸き起こりやすいのである。'There can be no doubt that, from the snippets of information released by the mass media, there is a whiff of something rotten, of a moral hazard (moral lack) in the form of the "triumph of brazen shamelessness." And this in itself sets the incident apart, and readily gives rise to feelings of disgust and anger.' Manabe, Atsushi (14 October 2020). "池袋暴走｢上級国民批判｣異常なほど沸騰する訳" [Ikebukuro runaway: Why criticism of upper-class citizens is so strong]. Toyo Keizai. Retrieved 2020-10-16.
  35. ^ 池袋暴走事件で上級国民と表現される疑心暗鬼の背景にあったのは、現在の社会が嘘や不正が公然とまかり通る「法の機能不全」に陥っている可能性と、それがむしろ新しい規範として定着しつつあることへの危機意識だと思われる。要は、犯罪者が特権的な地位を利用し、弁を弄して罪を逃れられる「法の機能していない社会」が出現したようなイメージである。これが実質的に「法体系をもたない社会」のようなカオス（混沌）として映り始めているとしたらどうだろうか。'The phrase "top-class citizens" used in the Ikebukuro runaway car incident expresses suspicions of there being machinations behind all and everything. Behind these suspicions is a sense of crisis in regard to today's society not only possibly descending into a state of legal dysfunction where falsehood and injustice are openly tolerated, but where this is becoming increasingly embedded as the new normal. That is to say, an image has been formed of a society where the law isn't working properly, where criminals make use of their privileged position and where they employ sophistry to clear themselves of wrongdoing. What is to become of things if, in real terms, this begins to come across as chaos, as the disarray of a society that lacks a legal structure?' Manabe, Atsushi (14 October 2020). "池袋暴走｢上級国民批判｣異常なほど沸騰する訳" [Ikebukuro runaway: Why criticism of upper-class citizens is so strong]. Toyo Keizai. Retrieved 2020-10-16.
  36. ^ ウィキペディアで加筆と削除の応酬　池袋暴走事故めぐり 2020-09-25 Asahi Shimbun
  37. ^ 【池袋暴走事故】飯塚幸三被告が大炎上！ ウィキペディア編集不可能で「賞賛」のみ掲載 / 事故詳細には名前記載せず 2020-10-08 Buzz Plus News
  38. ^ ウィキペディアで加筆と削除の応酬　池袋暴走事故めぐり 2020-09-25 Asahi Shimbun
  39. ^ ""高齢"免許を定年制にすべきか？ マツダ福祉車両から見るミライ".
  40. ^ "高齢ドライバーの池袋暴走、車の安全技術普及契機に－遺族が要望".
  41. ^ "高齢ドライバーの安全運転について～75歳以上のドライバーのご家族や周囲の方へ～ | 安全運転ほっとNews".
  42. ^ INC, SANKEI DIGITAL (2020-10-08). "免許返納は過去最多に 池袋事故初公判 事故後に法整備も". 産経ニュース (in Japanese). Retrieved 2020-10-10.
  43. ^ "【独自】都内で3日間で1200人以上免許返納 池袋暴走・母子死亡後" [Independently, Over 1,200 People in Tokyo Surrender their Driving Licence in the Aftermath of the Ikebukuro Runaway Car Accident in which a Mother and Daughter were Killed]. Fuji News Network. 10 May 2019. Archived from the original on 2019-05-14. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  44. ^ "More drivers surrendering licenses after fatal Tokyo car crash". The Mainichi. 13 November 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  45. ^ "Elderly man involved in fatal Ikebukuro accident to have driver's license revoked". The Japan Times. 1 June 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
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