Japan police arrest driver who fled after car carrying 2 kids fell from bridge onto highway
HAMAMATSU, Shizuoka -- Police searching for a driver who left two children inside a vehicle that crashed through the side of a bridge and fell onto the shoulder of an expressway in this central Japan city arrested a 47-year-old man on June 2.
Hamamatsu Chuo Police Station arrested Akiya Kurebayashi, a self-proclaimed unemployed resident of the Shizuoka Prefecture city of Omaezaki, on suspicion of violating the Road Traffic Act by driving without a license and failing to report an accident.
Kurebayashi is accused of crashing into a guardrail while driving without a license on a municipal road in Hamamatsu's Chuo Ward at about 1:30 p.m. on June 1. The vehicle fell from the Hikumano Bridge onto the shoulder of the Tomei Expressway, but Kurebayashi allegedly left the scene without reporting the accident to police.
Neither of the two children in the car was injured. The driver left the vehicle and children behind, fleeing before the police arrived, but was arrested in the same ward the following morning. He reportedly had had his driver's license revoked several years before.
The police have not disclosed whether the suspect has admitted to the charges nor revealed his relationship with the children found inside the car. They are investigating the detailed causes of the accident.
(Japanese original by Shiho Fujibuchi, Shizuoka Bureau)
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