Locals Account for Majority of Victims of Accidents at Dangerous Railway Crossings

June 10, 2018

Tokyo- Of 27 people who died in accidents at underequipped railroad crossings in Japan in fiscal 2014 and later, at least 16 were living near the crossings where they lost their lives, according to an investigation report by the Japan Transport Safety Board.

The report is expected to spur renewed debates on scrapping or improving such dangerous Class 4 crossings, which do not have alarms or automated barriers, pundits said.

Among the accidents, a passenger car collided with a Ryutetsu Co. train at a Class 4 crossing on the railroad operator's Nagareyama Line in Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, on July 11, 2014, leaving two, including the 70-year-old male driver of the car, dead and five passengers of the train slightly injured, according to the report by the board, an affiliate of the transport ministry.

The man was living near the crossing for about 20 years and careful about using crossings around his place, his relatives said in the board's probe.

In a collision between a minivehicle and a train of Kyushu Railway Co. <9142>, or JR Kyushu, at a crossing on the Ibusuki Makurazaki Line in Ibusuki, Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan, on Aug. 22, 2016, a woman, 71, who was driving the car, was killed, and another person in the car was injured.

They were both living near the crossing for about 20 years and had frequently used the crossing, according to the survivor.

A 30-year-old man who was driving a car in the southwestern city of Kumamoto on Oct. 16, 2016, died as the car collided with a train at a crossing on Kumamoto Electric Railway's Kikuchi Line.

The man moved to the area including the crossing only on Oct. 7 that year. There was no Class 4 crossing around the place where he had lived before, according to the report. Jiji Press