Ex-Univ. Student Guilty of Fatal Bike Accident Involving Smartphone

August 28, 2018

Kawasaki, Kanagawa Pref.- The Kawasaki branch of Yokohama District Court on Monday found a 20-year-old woman, a former university student, guilty of hitting and killing a 77-year-old pedestrian while she was riding a bicycle operating her smartphone.

The court branch gave her a two-year prison sentence, suspended for four years, against the two-year term demanded by public prosecutors.

On Dec. 7 last year, the defendant was riding a motor-assisted bicycle for at least about 33 seconds while holding a beverage container in her right hand and sending and receiving messages with her smartphone in her left hand in a pedestrians-only zone in the city of Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, eastern Japan, and she crashed into the female pedestrian, causing her to fall and die of brain contusion, according to the ruling.

The former student "lacked awareness that a bicycle can kill or injure people," Presiding Judge Kenichi Emi said, criticizing her "self-centered attitude toward riding a bicycle that gave no consideration to the safety of people around her."

Explaining the reasons for suspending the sentence, the judge said that the speed of the bicycle at the time of the accident was relatively low, at about 9 kilometers per hour, and that the defendant has expressed remorse.

The defendant voluntarily quit her university after the accident.

After the court decision, the victim's daughter, 49, told reporters: "I think the ruling is light given the preciousness of my mother's life. The law is behind the times." Jiji Press