Ex-Truck Driver Sentenced to 7 Years for Fatal Expressway Crash

Tsu, Mie Pref., Oct. 20 (Jiji Press)--Tsu District Court on Tuesday sentenced a former truck driver to seven years in prison for an expressway crash that killed six people, including three children, in Mie Prefecture, western Japan, in March.

The seven-year sentence for Mitsuyo Mizutani, 55, came as requested by the prosecution.

According to the ruling, Mizutani was driving a truck at about 82 kilometers per hour, above the speed limit, on the Shin-Meishin Expressway in the Mie city of Kameyama, while looking at her smartphone before dawn on March 20.

The truck plowed into a line of vehicles in a traffic jam, killing Keizo Takamine, then 56, from the city of Soka, Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, as well as Koji Matsumoto, then 45, and his four family members from the city of Fukuroi, Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan.

During the trial, the prosecution argued that Mizutani was watching the short-video sharing app TikTok on her smartphone for about 13 seconds at the time of the accident.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]