A 20-year-old suspect was “seriously at fault” in the death of a third-grade girl who was crossing the street in a pedestrian crossing.

She was crossing the crosswalk. ……

Yui, thank you for playing with me!　I’ll never forget you.

Many flowers placed at the site. The message was probably from a classmate. The girl was said to have been an athletic and cheerful child. We couldn’t help but join hands with her as we thought of her life suddenly cut short.

Shortly after 5:30 in the evening of April 2, a woman passerby in Totsuka Ward, Yokohama, told us, “There was an accident between a passenger car and a pedestrian. An elementary school girl did not respond to our calls,” she called 110. Yui Nakanishi, 8, a third grader living nearby who was involved in the accident, was taken to the hospital, but died an hour and a half later. The Totsuka Police Station of the Kanagawa Prefectural Police caught the suspect, Kyomasa Harada, 20, a part-time worker in Sakae-ku, Kanagawa Prefecture, driving a passenger car, red-handed on suspicion of violating the Automobile Driving Death or Injury Punishment Law (negligent driving manslaughter). He was later charged with negligent homicide.

The scene was a crosswalk intersection with no traffic lights. Yui was crossing the pedestrian crossing with her two friends when they were run over by Harada’s car, which came straight ahead from the right side.

Harada stated that he was aware that Yui was near the pedestrian crossing, and he admitted the charge. At the time of the accident, a male friend was riding in the passenger seat of the car and said that he had picked up a man who lived nearby and was on his way to play with him.

The intersection where the accident took place is located right in the middle of a straight road with good visibility that stretches for nearly 400 meters. There is a fair amount of traffic, and children coming and going between the residential area with condominiums and the greenway and park across the pedestrian crossing have long been considered a danger. A man who lives nearby said.

A man who lives nearby said, “When I was driving, that intersection was a place that I had to pay attention to. Because it is a straight line and there is no traffic light, I was speeding and had a near-miss experience when a small child came out onto the sidewalk. I heard that there was another accident there about three years ago.

There is no concept of “jumping out” in an accident in a crosswalk.

As far as media reports indicate, Harada was not seriously negligent in touching his cell phone. However, Mr. Munenori Kumagai, a former traffic investigator and representative of the Traffic Accident Investigation and Analysis Office, says that pedestrian crosswalks are “sanctuaries” for pedestrians, and that thorough checks should be made.

The accident occurred at dusk, when it was still dark. It is possible that the girl was too short to be seen by the fence on the sidewalk, but the pedestrian crossing should have been visible from a distance. Drivers have a duty to check not only people crossing the crosswalk, but also pedestrians who are trying to cross. If they were looking ahead with that much awareness, they should have been able to see the entire intersection. The reason for the delay in detection is that the driver either did not slow down properly or neglected to check. That is probably the cause of the accident.

For example, if a child runs out of a pedestrian crossing near a park or some other place that is not a pedestrian crossing, the driver’s fault may be reduced to some extent. However, in the case of an accident on a pedestrian crossing, there is no such thing as “jumping out. Drivers must check for safety as if a car is crossing a pedestrian crossing.

However, Mr. Kumagai was concerned about one point regarding the accident.

Crosswalks at intersections without traffic lights are supposed to have prominent diamond-shaped “diamond marks” on the road 30 meters and 50 meters in front of them, but I did not see any such marks on the video. Still, there is no way the suspect could not have seen the pedestrian crossing ahead on such a straight road with such good visibility, so the fact remains that the suspect did not check well ahead.”

The fact that a moment of inattention has taken away a girl’s future forever must be taken seriously.

*FRIDAY Digital welcomes your information and tip-offs. Please send your information to the following information form or to the official X.

Information form: https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/tips
Official X: https://x.com/FRIDAY_twit