When a 50-year-old man in Oita died after the car he was driving was hit by another vehicle that was driven at 194 kilometers per hour on a street with a 60 kph speed limit, his bereaved family was certain that the suspect would be charged with dangerous driving.
To their surprise, prosecutors indicted the young driver of the other vehicle on a more lenient charge of negligent driving resulting in death, which carries up to seven years in prison.
It prompted the family to gather 28,000 signatures to petition for the 19-year-old driver to be tried for fatal dangerous driving, which is punishable with up to 20 years in prison. The teenager had wanted to see how fast the car he was driving could go.
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