Investigator Recounts Probe of Ikebukuro Car Crash 7 Years On

Tokyo, April 19 (Jiji Press)–With Sunday marking seven years since a woman and her daughter were killed by a runaway car in Tokyo’s busy Ikebukuro district, the lead police investigator at the time has said that he probed the accident with the bereaved family’s grief in his heart. “We should not let this accident fade away,” Akira Takahashi, 58, now head of the Traffic Investigation Division at the Japanese capital’s Metropolitan Police Department, said. Shortly after noon on April 19, 2019, Takahashi rushed to Ikebukuro from the MPD’s headquarters after receiving a report that a car hit multiple people. He described the scene as gruesome and unlike anything he had experienced before, with a garbage truck on its side and a bicycle split in half. The driver of the car was a man who was 87 years old at the time. Takahashi immediately ordered officers to halt traffic and collect footage from security cameras in the area. Dashcam footage from the car that caused the accident showed a mother and a child on a bicycle being hit by the car and thrown off. Takahashi was also tasked with explaining the police investigation to the bereaved family, including Takuya Matsunaga, 39, the husband of the deceased mother. The officer said that he remembers Matsunaga rolling up a piece of white paper and saying, “My current state of mind is the same as this; even if it’s spread out, wrinkles will remain and it will not return to its original state.” The driver of the vehicle, Kozo Iizuka, claimed at the time that the accident occurred because his car malfunctioned. Takahashi instructed his investigators to work hard, telling them that they should not betray the expectations of the bereaved family. Investigators thoroughly examined the vehicle and confirmed that there was no problem with it. They also studied Iizuka’s health condition and found that his chronic illness did not contribute to the cause of the accident, proving that the accident was due to the driver having mistakenly stepped on the gas pedal instead of the brake. “We were able to give it our all,” Takahashi said. Iizuka pleaded not guilty at his trial, but was sentenced to five years in prison, which was later finalized. He died in October 2024 while serving his sentence. The incident attracted significant attention, and prompted many elderly drivers to voluntarily give up their drivers’ licenses. However, the number of accidents caused by elderly drivers erroneously stepping on the gas pedal remains high. Meanwhile, concerns are raised that the Ikebukuro incident may fade from people’s memory with the passage of time. Takahashi said that he wants people to “think about the accident again” so that a similar tragedy does not happen. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]