Law to Toughen Penalties for Reckless Driving Takes Effect

Tokyo, May 20 (Jiji Press)--A new Japanese law to impose tougher penalties on drivers who cause accidents resulting in deaths or injuries due to reckless driving took effect on Tuesday. The law sets the maximum prison term at 15 years for drivers causing fatal accidents as a result of driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs or certain diseases such as epilepsy. The maximum term is set at 12 years for those causing injuries due to such driving. The new legislation was introduced in response to criticism, after many such reckless drivers faced charges of negligent driving that is punishable with jail terms of up to only seven years under the nation's penal code. The penal code sets the maximum term for those causing deaths or injuries due to dangerous driving at 20 years, but also sets a tough requirement for law-enforcement authorities to fully prove that the drivers were in a state where they had difficulties driving normally. The new law has an easier requirement, stipulating that authorities need to verify that drivers were in a state that could possibly prevent normal driving. The law also says that those who drive the wrong way on one-way streets at dangerous speeds and cause fatal or injury accidents are punished with prison terms of up to 20 years. Drivers who cause fatal or injury accidents under the influence of alcohol and flee from the accident scenes to conceal the fact of drunk driving face prison terms of up to 12 years, according to the law. Calls for harsher punishments heightened especially after 10 people were killed or injured in a reckless driving case in Kameoka, Kyoto Prefecture, western Japan, in 2012. In the accident, a car driven by an unlicensed young man plowed into elementary school children who were on their way to school. END