Man Hit By Train While Using Cell Phone On Tracks
by julia on Saturday, October 19, 2013
A railway crossing near Oyama station.
This month, the Japanese news has been full of tragic accidents resulting from negligence and distraction. First, a child died after sticking her head out of a moving car. Only a few days later, a woman almost let her infant son drown when she got caught up in surfing the internet. Now, in a continuation of this unfortunate streak of accidents, a man in Tokyo has died after stepping into a railway crossing while using his smartphone.by julia on Saturday, October 19, 2013
A railway crossing near Oyama station.
Since this news broke, netizens have been quick to blame the man’s foolishness and reluctant to consider this a problem with cell phone use in general. Commenters’ sympathies have overwhelmingly sided with the train company, with some drawing a parallel between this accident and a previous incident where a train company successfully sued the bereaved family for losses after a man with dementia was hit by a train.
From Yahoo! Japan:
Man Dies After Being Hit By Train in Itabashi, Tokyo; Did He Enter The Railway Crossing Without Noticing Because He Was Using His Cell Phone?
Around 8:10 PM on October 16, at a railroad crossing near Oyama station on the Tobu Tojo line in Oyamahigashi, Itabashi ward, Tokyo, a man seemingly in his 40s died after being hit by the Tokyo-bound express train from Ogawa to Ikebukuro. The man was observed walking while fiddling with his cell phone, and Tokyo Metropolitan Police at the Itabashi office believe that the man entered the railroad crossing without noticing that the crossing gates were going down.
According to the police, the railroad crossing where this occurred has crossing gates that descend on both sides. An alarm sounded, and the crossing gates came down, but it seems that the man passed through the gap between the gates and entered the railroad crossing. The train was moving at high speed in order to pass through Oyama station.
