Former truck driver gets seven-year sentence for killing six in expressway crash

Tsu, Mie Pref. – 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 in March.

The seven-year sentence for Mitsuyo Mizutani, 55, was issued 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 city of Kameyama in the prefecture, 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 in Saitama Prefecture, as well as Koji Matsumoto, then 45, and his four family members from the city of Fukuroi in Shizuoka Prefecture.

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

On Oct. 7, a transport company in the western city of Hiroshima and its president were referred to prosecutors on suspicion of requiring five truck drivers, including Mizutani, to work illegal overtime.