The drivers of at least 10 sports cars involved in a pile-up in Yamaguchi Prefecture in December 2011 are finally to be charged.
Eight Ferraris and a Lamborghini were among the cars wrecked in the crash that Yamaguchi police dubbed "a gathering of narcissists."
The accident occurred when the driver of a red Ferrari in the lead was switching from the right lane to the left on the rain-soaked Chugoku Expressway in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture and skidded. The drivers, aged between 37 and 60 years old, were subsequently involved in a pile-up in which six people were injured, two of them seriously.
The accident also involved a Ferrari F-360, valued at around 18 million yen. Police said clearing the wreckage from the highway took over six hours.
The driver suspected of causing the accident, a 60-year-old self-employed man from Fukuoka Prefecture, and the nine others are to be charged with accidental infliction of injury while driving, TBS reported.
Mangled Ferraris -- many of them racing red -- and debris were spread over some 400 meters of the east-bound side of the expressway, the main trunk road in southern Honshu.
A Prius and a second Toyota were also caught up in the 14-car smash but were not part of the supercar pack. The three other vehicles involved in the accident were all Mercedes-Benz.
At the time, a witness said that a group of cars was doing 140-160 kilometers per hour. The speed limit on that section of the highway was 80 kilometers per hour.
One of the Ferraris was a F430 Scuderia, a model with a top speed of 320 kilometers per hour.
© Japan Today
44 Comments
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Yubaru
Idiots, serves them right, and fortunately no one was killed.
paulinusa
Swift justice?
Ewan Huzarmy
A gathering of narcissists ......Was Jeremy Clarkson part of the pile up ?
wanderlust
It's taken them 16 months to decide to charge them! Well at least this time they do not need forced confessions or altered evidence, that facts are plain to see...
KnowBetter
JC would have been screaming "GET OUT OF MY WAY" to that group of slow pokes... 140-160kms per hour on that highway... please! j/k ;/
Aristoman
Lesson learned. Yet for some folks 180.000 dollars is not much for a car.
Ed High
Like a famous F1 driver said "There are are Ferrari drivers and then there are Ferrari Owners" It's easy to assume that these idiots were the latter - And like the majority of Japanese drivers on the roads, they practice "Never Think & Drive"
Daijoboots
140-160 km/hr on a rain-soaked expressway.
If you wanna move that fast safely I suggest the Tohoku E5 shinkansen.
nath
The accident also involved a Ferrari F-360, valued at around 18 million yen. Police said clearing the wreckage from the highway took over six hours.
And? Most of the cars in this smash were worth much more than 18 mil.
SauloJpn
Just like any other driver, they should be properly penalized for all the the laws they broke, sounds like they broke quite a few!!
Eduardo Gonzalez
Much bigger than the taxes we pay daily
TheCookieMobster
So they are going to charge them for speeding based on civilian eye-witness testimony then?
I don't really see any need to charge them with anything. Not only did they see their stupid lives flash before their eyes, but they also paid a fine to the tune of a small fortune in a sports car, far more than any fine the system could dish out.
in the process, they also sent a message to all the other car enthusiasts who also form caravans in this country. Getting all draconian now is much like farting in the wind and giving yourself a hernia forcing it out.
gogogo
Seriously?
xandirules
a gathering of narcissists.
Jealousy.
soldave
Narcissists equalling people who earn more money than the police spokesman asked for a quote, I'm assuming.
Should have been on the Wangan. That Ferrari might have been able to get close to 320 on there, as long as it's dry.
Xeno23
Carma
namabiru4me
An estimated $4 million dollar pile up..."the world's most expensive":
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8934718/Astonishing-accident-involving-eight-Ferraris-worlds-most-expensive-car-crash.html
sighclops
Of course these guys had it coming, but 80km/h on highways is ridiculous. No one drives at this speed!
Virtuoso
They just described this whole country, more or less.
jforce
I wonder how many of them wore those Ferrari jackets? Nerds.
Surf O'Holic
Driving recklessly on public roads is the issue, nevermind the make/model. The speed limits, admittedly low, are aimed at reducing deaths. The roads are not a race course. Drive responsibly. Willfully endangering the safety of others is utterly irresponsible. That goes for any driver or rider.
Lowly
I hope it wasn't the lowly Toyota drivers who got hurt.
Ya, they had it comin, no mention is made but I imagine that it wasn't only the speed in the rain at fault, but the tailgating. They all drive right up close to each other here, I see it all the time on the highways, not opening enough space before the next car so you can slow dn and not hit them if they crash. At that speed...
Check out the telegraph link someone posted above. Video footage.
GW
Yep the keystones once again, NOT, very timely haha.
This shud easily be sorted chargewise after a few interviews with perps & witnesses, over a YEAR, talk about LAZY!
Kyle Alpert
Seems the import car market is alive and well!
Disillusioned
They have witness reports of 140-160 kph, but no mention of speeding fines. I'll bet they were going a lot faster than that. I've seen groups of imported cars racing up the higashi kanto freeway heading to ibaraki and these mullets were traveling in the 180-200 kph range. I've always asked, if the speed limit is 100 kph, why does anyone need a car that will go three times the speed limit? All cars should be speed limited to the speed limit of the country or state of registration. It would not be hard to imagine how many lives would be saved by limiting speeds of cars. Narcissists? They called, hoons where I come from.
2020hindsights
I think what he really said was "a gathering of car enthusiasts." Easy to make the mistake.
2020hindsights
Why? A lot of supercar owners drive on race tracks. No limit.
ReformedBasher
This would be a happy event except that people not involved were affected. As for the others, I hope the book gets thrown at them and it hits them on the head.
My respect and liking for the police of Yamaguchi has increased.
ReformedBasher
@Surf O'Holic
Amen
Tizalleyman
@thecookiemobster
And what about being charged for the danger they posed to the drivers of those Toyotas as well as all the other innocent drivers on the road? I'm all for letting people drive as fast as they want in a controlled environment where they can only hurt themselves if they drive beyond their ability, but not on public roadways, make an example of these jokers...
SumoBob
As far as I've seen, 80 kilometers per hour is the speed limit on all expressways in Japan.
Keith Tarrier
@Disillusioned.
The idea makes sense but there are times when a car will need a burst of power and/or acceleration to avoid an accident. Hence a limit about 20% more may be suitable.
But then again, you are allowed to race your own car on private race tracks. Something many of these owners do.
Education is the key... But we know nothing will change in that regards.
Vernie Jefferies
They are being Charged.....I assume they have the credit cards to pay the fines.
presto345
It's not. There are many stretches where the limit is 100 kph. For an experienced and well trained driver 140-160 kph with a vehicle built for speed and with proper tires is not that fast, but it seems the only qualification these guys had was money. The highway section in question is generally a busy one, although not as busy as the Tomei, for example. Turning a public road into a race track is irresponsible, not to say criminal, and the narcissists should be held accountable.
Fadamor
@ TheCookieMobster,
They payed hardly anything at all. Their insurance companies did most of the paying. Ask the occupants of the two cars who were NOT racing but were collided with whether the perps should be charged.
Maitake
I'm so glad that happened to those idiots!
Jason Santana
These people are just stupid! Just because you have a fast car doesn't mean you should treat it like its stolen.
fupayme
Trust me, 95% of supercar owners are very narcissistic
I know this because I am one.
Luckily for me I don't belong to one of those "lets be douchebags together" car club groups
I like to bask in my douchery alone.
There is no douchier feeling like intentionally putting the top down for no reason, on my Gallardo in the middle of traffic while smoking and drinking my starbucks.
What makes it the best is I dress like a bum, so it makes me look like I didn't earn it
Trust me, we have emotional issues :)
nishikat
The problem with cars the class of Ferrari and Lamborghini is those cars may be supercars but you need to be a highly skilled super driver to handle them. AFAIK they don't have stability technology that forgives screwups on the highway like overcompensating. They are easy to wreck if you don't know what you are doing. They are even easy to lose control of and wreck on a city street. Want proof? Here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pgm8I0B8bY
....and the rest is news...
gelendestrasse
Wow, that took long enough.
Disillusioned
Is a public freeway a race track? Public cars do not need to be able to travel at speeds in excess of the speed limits. Cars that can travel at 2-300 kph should not be registered for pubic roads and should ONLY be driven on race tracks.
heretoolong
What could have taken the police 16 months to charge this idiots? Seriously? Were they asking for a higher kickback to look the other way and didn't get enough? Snails can move faster than the police in this country, but if they had all been Gaijin, you know they would have been charged within a week.
ka_chan
200 kph is about 133 mph. It's not that fast compared to what the cars should be able to do. But do over 80 on rain soaked roads is nuts especially with the tires that should have been on the cars. They were hydroplaning.
How Bob
LOL!