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A 65-year-old diabetic man who drove the wrong way along a one-street in Osaka has been charged with dangerous driving resulting in injury.
According to police, Noriyuki Miyatani turned right into Midosuji street at around 4 p.m. on June 30. He drove the wrong way, hitting a woman on her bicycle, fracturing her ribs. He then backed up and went in the other direction, hitting a truck, before smashing into the wall of a store.
Miyatani and the truck driver also sustained injuries.
Miyatani's family told police that he was a diabetic and that he suffered from hypoglycemia which can cause dizziness, NTV reported.
Police waited until Miyatani recovered from his injuries and then questioned him on Friday. He was quoted by police as saying he had taken his insulin injections on the morning of the accident and that while he was driving, he felt hungry and ate some sweets, NTV reported. However, police said Miyatani cannot remember causing the accident.
Miyatani was charged under a new law that went into effect in May to toughen penalties for dangerous driving. The law, drawn up by the Ministry of Justice, is aimed at those who drive without a license or who hide a medical condition that might affect their driving when they apply for a license.
Under the new bill, causing death while driving drunk or as a result of a chronic condition, such as epilepsy and hypoglycemia, will be punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment. Furthermore, anyone who hides a medical condition that may affect their driving when they apply for a license face a penalty of one year in jail and a fine of 300,000 yen.
Medical professionals who are aware that their patients who suffer epilepsy or schizophrenia are driving, are required to report it to public safety authorities.
© Japan Today
37 Comments
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nath
There were many critics of this law and one whom I believe was the Japan Diabetes Society. This law opens up Pandora's Box and this is the first hint of what the police may have in store for anyone who has a medical condition. Next they will be arresting women who cause accidents while they are menstruating.
M3M3M3
The problem with the change in the law is that it was entirely unnecessary in my opinion. Historically, it's always been very difficult to prosecute diabetics for accidents caused as a result of hypoglycemia since they cannot be held responsible for something that they did while they were not in control of their own bodies (non-insane automatism). The diabetic can only be held responsible if they were reckless in not seeking to control their condition. This is very difficult to prove this based on the fact that every diabetic's condition and symptoms can be unique, but the previous law was able to deal with this.
The driver in this case might say that in the past, the sweets that he ate were sufficient to raise his blood sugar, and so it is not fair to hold him responsible in this case where unexpectedly the sweets did not work. He might even call an expert to say that the sweets he ate should have been enough. What the change in the law seems to have done is basically turn driving while being diabetic into a strict liability criminal offence where this defence of taking reasonable steps to deal with the condition can not be raised. In other words, if your blood sugar suddenly drops and you are involved in an accident, you will be automatically criminally responsible based on the outcome, even though your conduct was entirely reasonable and not blameworthy.
I'm not aware of any other country that has taken such a draconian step. I'm not a diabetic, but I wonder if the fact that diabetes is not very common in Japan means that there is a lack of understanding of the issue.
I'm curious to know what othr people think about the issue.
Frungy
I wonder what their defniition of "affect" is, because this phrasing is far too vague. Anything could "affect" your driving. Got a heart condition? That affects your driving. Slightly less acute hearing in one of your ears? That affects your driving. Suffer from sinusitis? That affects your driving. Have a skin condition? That affects your driving too. Admittedly most of these conditions do not increase your chance of having an accident by a statistically significant amount, but that seems like no real defense against this law as epileptics don't suffer more accidents than other drivers.
In essence what this law does is make a complete medical mandatory before getting your driver's license, and complete disclosure of the medical results to the driver's license department, which is a gross invasion of privacy. Furthermore it criminalises virtually every single accident as sufficient digging will reveal that almost everyone has some sort of medical condition that may "affect" their driving.
It is a ridiculous and over-reaching law that makes driving accidents criminal for almost everyone.
And just meditate for a moment that riding a bicycle falls under the same laws.
jazz350
This law has to be repealed, pronto.
CrazyJoe
According to one study (New England Journal of Medicine), epileptics had a 33 percent higher accident risk and diabetics a 32 percent higher risk than the rest of the population. Both groups were also more likely to be stopped by the police for careless driving. And the epileptics were nearly three times as likely as other people to be cited for violations that involved alcohol or drugs.
Quintilian
As an insulin-using diabetic, I sympathize with Miyatani. Still, the injuries caused were serious and could have been worse.
The new bill equates drunk driving with insulin-induced hypoglycemia and epilepsy, which strikes me as grossly unfair to people with medical conditions. Even conscientious insulin users can have a difficult time predicting hypoglycemia, and some don't recognize it in time.
Drivers with diabetes have a modestly higher, but acceptable, risk of accidents. The focus should be on patient education rather than draconian sanctions. Drivers with diabetes should be encouraged to check their blood sugar before driving and to have a snack before longer drives. I'm certain that these two measures would greatly reduce hypoglycemic episodes while driving.
kimuzukashiiiii
Im sorry, but someone with diabetes which is causing dizziness on a daily basis should not be driving at ALL.
It is one thing for someone to suffer an unexplained medical problem, like a heart attack or a stroke, at the wheel of a car. Those are not preventable or predictable.
However this guys family knew he was at risk and they still allowed him to drive? It makes them as responsible as him. In this case he was lucky, he didnt kill anyone. I think this guy should be made an example of, and made to serve a hefty jail term.
Quintilian
@kimuzukashiiiii The article doesn't say that Miyatani had daily dizziness; no diabetic has hypoglycemia every day.
Also, strokes and heart attacks, while not predictable, are largely preventable. Should we imprison people who've had such events that led to accidents while driving, if we can show that they failed to take their blood pressure medicine, to eat a healthy diet, etc.?
M3M3M3
@kimuzukashiiiii & others
Anyone who thinks this man should be punished, can you also address this hypothetical point:
What if he had taken the same amount of sweets on previous occaisons and this had always brought his blood sugar level back to normal, however for some inexplicable reason, on this occaision the sweets were not effective in regulating his blood sugar.
This is the crux of the issue here. Under the old law, this would be taken into account. If he behaved reasonably in treating his condition based on the available knowledge, he would not be criminally liable. Under the new law, it seems his reasonable conduct is irrelevant. He would be guilty simply because a.) he has a chronic medical condition and b.) an accident occured.
kimuzukashiiiii
It seems that those with chronic medical conditions should not be driving then. With an aging population Japan needs to get pretty strict on this, pretty fast. I say a yearly driving test for all those over 60.
Probie
What is missing in the article, is that his doctor told him to stop driving.
Stop with the outrage. The dude shouldn't have been driving. It's all his own dumb, selfish fault. I hope he gets a long stay in jail.
M3M3M3
@Probie
I don't dispute this, but I have read a quite a few other articles on this story and none of them mention this. Can you provide a source if you have one handy? Thanks.
Quintilian
@Probie I agree that he shouldn't have been driving if he had an established pattern of severe hypoglycemia. If his doctor advised him not to drive, issues other than diabetes were probably involved (other diseases, poor medication adherence).
It's a little hard for me to understand, if the doctor had told him not to drive (presumably because of the danger of insulin-induced hypoglycemia), why he would continue to prescribe the insulin.
Where did you hear about his doctor?
nishikat
Hello Self driving cars. That will be a relief!
M3M3M3
@Probie
I've checked virtually every reputable source on this story in Japanese and none mention anything about a doctor giving advice not to drive. Are you sure that you are not confusing this incident with the infamous epilepsy case in Kyoto a while back? (which was the catalyst for all these changes in the law).
Frungy
Umm.. actually this has nothing to do with the topic. There are almost as many young people with chronic conditions (like asthma, heart conditions, diabetes, etc.) as there are old people with chronic conditions.
The bottom line here kimuzukashiiii is that this law has nothing to do with age, and everything to do with the government trying to pry into the private medical affairs of citizens without any due cause.
therougou
Good. I'm not sure about the details on his conditions but I do know I walked right by there with my family minutes before the crash. If it was my wife or daughter that got hit I certainly wouldn't feel sorry if the guy was locked up for a long time.
mikihouse
the guy after hitting a vehicle decided to boot, step on the pedal and drove into another direction hitting pedestrians. He is conscious and he simply panicked. They are using the diabetic card to get him off the hook.
Mirai Hayashi
Very good law....too bad so many people had to die before it went into effect
tmarie
...and everything to do with the government trying to pry into the private medical affairs of citizens without any due cause.
Actually, I think it has something to do with the fact that numerous people have been killed and injured by people on medication who are not fit to be driving. Sorry but folks with medical conditions such as this one - prone to dizzy spells - have no business getting behind the wheel of a car. More so in Osaka where the public transportation system is fantastic. He's lucky he didn't kill anyone as Midosuji is an insanely busy street.
Ah_so
You have not provided any evidence for this and I am somewhat sceptical. Epilepsy is a condition that can strike randomly to sufferers, so I would find it almost impossible to believe that the accident rate is the same, unless the act of driving somehow suppressed the likelihood of having an attack, which I find unlikely.
In many countries epileptics are prevented or limited in their ability to have driving licences. In the UK, you cannot have a licence for 2 years after an attack (10 years for heavy vehicles). This may mean that they have a lower chance of being in a car accident, because they are not driving in the first place!
Some of the arguments above seem to depict this law as an attack on human rights, as if the freedom to charge around in a couple of tons of steel at 60 miles per hour with a serious medical condition is some God-given right. Quintilian says:
This is not a moral judgement on medical conditions so not "unfair". If you are dangerous to other drivers with a condition, then you you should not be driving. "Fair" has got nothing to do with it - it is a pragmatic decision - that's life, deal with it. This is not the school playground.
If you crash into someone drunk, with an epileptic fit or diabetic stupor, you are morally equivalent in my view, if you were aware of the condition. In every case you got behind the wheel in the knowledge that you might lose control.
Frungy
Well if you find it "almost impossible to believe" then wouldn't I be wasting my time citing academic studies? You've clearly made up your mind.
On the faint possibility that you do have an open mind, then read: McLachlan, Starreveld and Lee, 2007, "the findings provide no support for the hypothesis that mandatory reporting of patients by physicians reduces accident risk and suggest that concerns about the impact of epilepsy on driving compared to other medical and nonmedical risk factors may be excessive.", or Taylor, 1996, "No difference in accident rates between those with and without epilepsy"
The research is mixed, but the bottom line is that no-one can PROVE epileptics have more accidents conclusively. Most often epileptics can feel a seizure coming on and have anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to pull over.
You know what I CAN prove causes accidents? Pain medication. The type that many people take for dental pain, kidney stones, or period pains. That covers a HUGE chunk of the population.
You know what I CAN also prove causes accidents? Fatigue. And with more than 30% of the drivers on the road getting less than 6 hours of sleep a night they're far more likely to cause an accident than an epileptic or someone with diabetes.
And do you know what the difference is between fatigue and diabetes? Fatigue is entirely avoidable and controllable. Just get a good night's sleep and you're much, much safer on the road. Diabetics on the other hand have a legitimate medical condition that they take active steps to control.
In short, there are more fatigued, inconsiderate asses on the road causing accidents than there are diabetes sufferers. Why not deal with fatigue first? It is a far larger problem.
M3M3M3
This is a disturbing comment. I don't think some people understand the most basic idea behind criminal law. We need to make sure that we are punishing blameworthy intentional actions, not unfortunate outcomes. If a court decides that this man acted reasonably in managing his condition, yet the accident still occured, should he be deprived of his liberty and sent to prison? If he acted reasonably and did everything he should have done, what purpose would locking him up serve? He should only be guilty of a criminal offence if he if he was reckless in managing his condition, and we don't have enough evidence about that. An accident should not automatically be a criminal offence, but this is exactly what the new law does and why it is so controversial.
(Of course, he will have to pay compensation to the victims since his actions caused the accident, whether or not they were blameworthy enough to amount to crimes)
@Frungy
I agree with your logic that other conditions are similar, but I would just point out that the new law only applies to chronic conditions specified in a cabinet order, which currently includes epilepsy and diabetes, but not the other conditions you mention.
mikihouse
the got out of the car, inspect the damage and decided to run off, not a sign of a person having diabetic hypoglycemia
Frungy
While you may be correct in regards to this specific law there are older laws that make reference to driving while "impaired", which had been used in a similar fashion to this new law. The penalties are lower, but the same principle applies, and technically any medication you're taking could be considered "impairing".
The bottom line is that this law opens up a world of possibilities for a malicious prosecutor looking to up their conviction count (and the fat cash bonus they get for each conviction) and presenting the case before a sympathetic judge (like most of the judges in Japan who are entirely too friendly with the prosecution).
M3M3M3
@Frungy
I fully agree with you Frungy. This creates a situation where you are automatically liable to be convicted unless the prosecutor arbitrarily chooses to show you mercy. There is simply no legal defence available under the new law. It begs the question, why didn't they ban diabetics from driving entirely? I assume the medical evidence wouldn't support it.
You are correct on the strict liability for impaired driving, but the issue with hypoglycemcia (as opposed to hyperglycemia in some cases) is of course that it usually doesn't involve taking any substance or medication (which I beleive is an element of the impaired driving offence in Japan), low blood sugar is just a natural state for many people with diabetes.
This law basically has the effect of banning diabetics from driving through the back door. I'm not a diabetic but the principle here does worry me.
Frungy
My best guess? Because many people need to drive for work purposes and banning them would provide a sufficiently large number of people with a reason to challenge the law in civil court as discriminatory - and I think they would be unable to find sufficiently conclusive evidence to defend the law. At the moment the law is applied selectively, and it is picking off people one at a time in criminal court where, contrary to all logic, it seems that lesser standards of evidence apply.
Liability for impaired driving doesn't seem to require you to take something. There was a case a year or so ago of a bus driver who was fatigued (i.e. not taking anything) and was charged criminally for impaired driving. Therefore I think a precedent exists for the definition of "impaired" driving as opposed to the more common international charge of "driving under the influence (of a substance)".
The principle worries me too. What worries me most of all is that they're not actually banning anyone from driving, merely slapping on criminal charges in addition to other charges. This is worrying for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that police and prosecutor bonuses are calculated per conviction per charge, not per individual. This will not only drive up the cost of the Japanese legal system with no real benefit to the public (research has found that this sort of post-hoc legislation does nothing to prevent accidents), but also provide the Japanese police and prosecutors to invade private medical records every single time there is an accident.
It is a pointless and meaningless law that costs the public a fortune for no benefit to society. In short it should never have been passed.
M3M3M3
@Frungy
Very good points. It's too bad that the general public never has a problem with these types of bad laws until it specifically targets them. Also, thanks for pointing out the substance/impaired difference in Japan.
Ah_so
Frungy - thank you for posting some research on this ocassion. When making a counter-intuitive claim as being backed by research, it helps to quote it from the office. I did a little bit of digging. To quote Taylor, Chadwick and Johnson 1996: "...there was no evidence of... increased risk of accidents in the population with epilepsy." I think this does support what you say somewhat. The next sentence does not agree with your line so much: "However there was evidence of a risk of more severe accidents in the population with epilepsy."
http://europepmc.org/scanned?pageindex=1&articles=PMC1073944
So it seems that the frequency of accidents is much the same, but they more severe when they occur. As you say the evidence is mixed, but I think that the laws in most countries have it about right at the moment. This is not to take away from the other valid points that you make, surrounding tiredness etc. Youth is another severe risk, which is arguably a genetic condition of sorts, but young people are allowed to drive.
Frungy
Helps who? It certainly doesn't help me, it just wastes my time, and I already know the research exists. It doesn't really help others either, as they get this strange sense that they're somehow entitled to make someone else their research monkey.
The next line wasn't quoted because the issue under discussion was the frequency of accidents, not their severity. If severity is your concern then all trucks, buses and heavy vehicles should be banned because the severity of accidents involving these vehicles is much higher. Does that demonstrate to you how utterly irrelevant the point is?
I have a friend who is a mathematician and calculates premiums for drivers. What is interesting is that youth is a correlated factor, but not a causative one, or to put it more simply, most new drivers are young and have more accidents, but data from the U.S. showed that in states where people begin driving earlier (like agricultural states) the same trend isn't as evident, and people moving from cities where the driving rate is low (e.g. NY) and beginning to drive in another area for the first time have a lot more accidents.
The bottom line is that young drivers aren't the problem, the problem is inexperienced drivers, and statistics suggest that the first 2 years of driving are the periods of greatest risk. The answer is simple, limit new drivers to certain categories of vehicles, like kei-cars or something even smaller and slower if they can find it (perhaps create a new category of cars for new drivers?), for their first couple of years of driving.
Probie
**@M3M3M3
Haha. Are you slyly saying that NHK isn't reliable? ;)
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20140706/k10015782391000.html
"医師から低血糖の症状が出そうになった場合は車の運転を控えるよう指導されていたことが、警察への取材で分かりました。"
Quintilian
@Frungy @Ah_so
Thanks for citing some research. As @Frungy mentions, the problem with this law is that it does not reflect what we know about motor vehicle accidents. The increase in risk for such accidents among people with diabetes is 12-19%. In contrast, the increase in risk is 140% for sleep apnea and 340% for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3652323/), which are by no means rare conditions.
I would add that enforcement of this law is going to be difficult. The only way to confirm hypoglycemia is with an on-the-spot glucose test, as the symptoms are often indistinguishable from shock, extreme anxiety, etc. To further complicate matters, people have different blood glucose thresholds for impairment from hypoglycemia. One person might be severely impaired with a blood glucose level of 40 mg/dL, while another would be unimpaired. Under these circumstances, how exactly are you going to prove someone was impaired?
I wrote:
To which @Ah_so responded:
I'm not suggesting that the law is taking a position with respect to the morality of people with any particular medical condition. The law is unfair because it equates driving under the influence of alcohol (the most important risk factor for accidents) with use of insulin (a life-saving medication that is only rarely involved in such accidents).
turbotsat
@Quintilian Two sentences after the NCBI article you linked says 'The increase in risk for such accidents among people with diabetes is 12-19%', it then says that "Several studies suggest that people with type 1 diabetes have a relative risk of approximately twice that of non-diabetic drivers." When you count all people that have diabetes, I suspect you'll have a lot of Type 2 diabetics that never feel dizzy and are counted as diabetic because their blood sugar levels exceed guidelines.
Dennis Bauer
Hm, so why did he keep driving when he was feeling dizzy?
Frungy
The article didn't say he was dizzy, in fact it merely said:
and
What they are IMPLYING is that he had low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) and took the sweets to compensate, however he might simply have felt like a snack. Or he could have suffered a stroke, it could be a sign of the onset of dementia.
It could be a dozen other things too. Unless the police confirmed that he actually had hypoglycemia with a blood test then they can't prove it... of course this is Japan and they don't need to prove it, because the accusation is sufficient and the accused has no right to access medical equipment or other supplies required to disprove them.
M3M3M3
@Probie
Thanks for providing the link. (I still haven't made up my mind on the reputability of NHK though!)
It seems like the doctor told him not to drive while suffering from hypoglycemic symptoms. However, this is fairly generic advice really, like don't drive when you are dizzy. Even if you pull over to the side of the road and wait for your symptoms to pass, eventually you are going to have to make a judgement that you are OK to start driving again... If you think you are OK, but in fact you are mistaken, its hard to say you deserve to go to jail.
ka_chan
Hypoglycemia is the opposite of diabetes. Diabetes is a condition of high blood sugar. Symptoms tend to be increased thirst and increased urination. Eating a meal will raise blood sugar in diabetics. Type I diabetes tend to be difficult to control since the body isn't making insulin so if diet isn't controlled, there can be a wide fluctuations in blood sugar. Type II is the more common where blood sugar levels are higher than normal. Usually the condition can be controlled by diet and/or medication. Insulin is needed in type I and less often in Type II. Insulin can cause hypoglycemic conditions but this can be corrected by sugar. Type II diabetes is on the climb in Japan as it is many parts of the world. This law seems to lack any kind of medical knowledge. But the end result may be that less and less people will be able to drive for conditions that really does not effect a person's ability to drive. Under this law, if you were out in the sun too long and felt a little dizzy, you can wind up in jail. Now that summer is here, watch out.