Police plan to arrest a 48-year-old truck driver for professional negligence after he was allegedly involved in 47 hit-and-run accidents in 30 minutes, they said Aug. 20.
The series of accidents came to an end around 11:20 a.m. on Aug. 20 when Kazuo Umemura drove his vehicle into a refrigerated truck that had stopped at a traffic light on National Route 1 in Oiso, Kanagawa Prefecture, police said.
Because of the impact of the collision, the refrigerator truck bounced into a trailer rig that was stopped at the light in the oncoming lane, police said.
Yasushi Furusawa, 42, the driver of the refrigerator truck, was killed and Umemura sustained broken ribs.
About 30 minutes before that accident, Umemura’s truck had hit 10 vehicles one after another on National Route 135 in Manazuru, Kanagawa Prefecture. After those altercations, he fled through the prefecture on highways passing through Odawara, Ninomiya and Oiso, instigating another 37 hit-and-runs.
Seven people suffered minor injuries in the series of accidents, police said.
Umemura, from Oiso, is an employee of an engineering firm. The truck he was driving was carrying cardboard boxes.
Police plan to arrest him as soon as his condition allows him to be questioned.
