The transport ministry is investigating serious traffic accidents involving trucks, buses, taxis and other commercial vehicles in order to draft preventive measures, ministry sources said Saturday.
While probing the details of the accidents, the land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry will also look into the background of each accident, including whether operational management was appropriate, so it can issue fact-finding reports as it does with air and railway accidents, the sources said.
The ministry has already launched investigations into five major accidents, including one involving a large trailer that flipped and caught fire on the Tokyo metropolitan expressway in August, and a tour bus that overturned on a snow-covered road in Aomori Prefecture in January 2008, killing one passenger, the sources said.
Five other cases will also be probed, and the ministry plans to issue reports on all 10 accidents around April 2010.
While indicating how the accidents occurred, the reports will also propose preventive measures, the sources said.