Police arrested a bus driver Thursday on suspicion of negligent driving after a crash on a Fukushima expressway killed a high school student the previous day, as investigators probe whether he was speeding and driving without the proper license required to carry passengers for hire.
On Friday morning, Fukushima prefectural police searched bus operator Kanbara Tetsudo in Gosen, Niigata Prefecture. The arrested driver, Tetsuo Wakayama, 68, told investigators he was driving at 90-100 kilometers per hour at the time in the 80-kph zone, according to the police.
Police are investigating possible violations over unlicensed commercial operations, as it was found that Wakayama did not hold the type of license required to drive passengers for hire.
Police said Wakayama confessed to having “misjudged the speed.” No significant skid marks were found at the crash site on the Banetsu Expressway in Koriyama, according to the police.
Wakayama is suspected of causing the bus carrying 20 members of the boys’ tennis team of Niigata’s Hokuetsu High School to crash into a guardrail on the expressway on Wednesday morning.
One of the students, Hiroto Inagaki, 17, was killed and 20 people were injured, including two people in another vehicle and Wakayama himself.
Kanbara Tetsudo President Kazuhiro Shigeno told a news conference Wednesday night that the school asked the company to arrange a bus, and a sales staff member hired the driver through an acquaintance without checking his driving history. In leasing the vehicle from a rental-car firm, the staff member submitted their own driver’s license instead of Wakayama’s.
However, the school said in a separate news conference Thursday night that the tennis team’s adviser denied the operator’s claim that the school requested the bus arrangement.
According to the Tainai city government in Niigata Prefecture, Wakayama worked as a municipal bus driver there for three years through March 2025.
© KYODO
