Driver gets prison term for fatal accident while using phone

OTSU: A court yesterday gave a 50-yearold former lorry driver a harsher sentence than prosecutors had sought for causing a fatal pileup while using a smartphone at the wheel on an expressway in western Japan last year.

The Otsu District Court sentenced Hiroyuki Maeda from Niigata Prefecture to two years and eight months in prison over the accident, which killed Yuji Mizutani, 44, and injured four others on Nov 21. Prosecutors had sought two years.

Maeda said during a court hearing he was using a map app on a smartphone to check his travel time to his destination.

Explaining the harsh sentence, Judge Teruyuki Imai said the prosecutors underestimated the level of criminality in accidents caused by drivers using smartphones and that the defendant faces a “considerable amount of blame” as there was “no urgency” to use a smartphone without pulling his vehicle over.

Under a court system allowing victims and their families to participate in criminal trials, Mizutani’s 46-year-old wife told a court earlier this month that Maeda’s actions were “the same as murder” as he was using a smartphone “knowing he could cause an accident”.

According to the ruling, Maeda’s lorry slammed into a car that was slowing down due to traffic congestion on the Meishin Expressway in Taga, Shiga prefecture.

Three other vehicles were also involved in the pileup.