{"id":19039,"date":"2026-05-08T06:59:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T06:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/19039\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T06:59:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T06:59:06","slug":"japanese-bus-driver-admits-he-misjudged-speed-before-crash-that-killed-teenaged-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/19039\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese bus driver admits he \u2018misjudged speed\u2019 before crash that killed teenaged student"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/japan?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Japanese<\/a> police have arrested a bus driver on suspicion of negligent driving after a crash on a Fukushima expressway killed a high school student on Wednesday, as investigators look into whether he was speeding and driving without the proper license required to carry passengers for hire.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">On Friday morning, Fukushima prefectural police searched bus operator Kanbara Tetsudo in Gosen, Niigata prefecture.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The arrested driver, Tetsuo Wakayama, 68, told investigators after his arrest on Thursday that he was driving at 90km\/h (56mph) to 100km\/h at the time in the 80km\/h zone, according to the police.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Police are investigating possible violations over unlicensed commercial operations, as it was found that Wakayama did not hold the type of license required to drive passengers for hire.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Police said Wakayama confessed to having \u201cmisjudged the speed\u201d. No significant skid marks were found at the crash site on the Banetsu Expressway in Koriyama, according to the police.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Fukushima prefectural police head to search bus operator Kanbara Tetsudo in Gosen, Niigata Prefecture, on Friday. Photo: Kyodo\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/img.i-scmp.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto\/sites\/default\/files\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2026\/05\/08\/143b1234-2389-4a79-a817-d99d2d8a7c1d_c6bb5ed5.jpg\" title=\"Fukushima prefectural police head to search bus operator Kanbara Tetsudo in Gosen, Niigata Prefecture, on Friday. Photo: Kyodo\"\/>Fukushima prefectural police head to search bus operator Kanbara Tetsudo in Gosen, Niigata Prefecture, on Friday. Photo: Kyodo<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Wakayama is suspected of causing the bus carrying 20 members of the boys\u2019 tennis team of Niigata\u2019s Hokuetsu High School to crash into a crash barrier on the expressway on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japanese police have arrested a bus driver on suspicion of negligent driving after a crash on a Fukushima&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15050,625,15044,15043,15042,8,17,15048,15040,15049,15046,6837,15047,15041,15045],"class_list":{"0":"post-19039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-japan","8":"tag-banetsu-expressway","9":"tag-fukushima","10":"tag-gosen","11":"tag-hiroto-inagaki","12":"tag-hokuetsu-high-school","13":"tag-japan","14":"tag-japanese","15":"tag-kanbara-tetsudo","16":"tag-kazuhiro-shigeno","17":"tag-koriyama","18":"tag-negligent-driving","19":"tag-niigata","20":"tag-tainai","21":"tag-tetsuo-wakayama","22":"tag-unlicensed-commercial-operations"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}