In August 2006 a car driven on a bridge by a then employee of the Fukuoka Municipal Government rear-ended a sport utility vehicle carrying a couple and their three children. The SUV plunged into Hakata Bay and the three children perished. In the trial of the former municipal worker, public prosecutors called for 25 years imprisonment — the maximum 20 years provided under the Penal Code for dangerous driving resulting in death plus another five years for hit and run under the Road Traffic Law.
The Fukuoka District Court rejected these charges and instead convicted the 23-year-old man of "negligence" resulting in death and of driving under the influence of alcohol. He was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison, the heaviest punishment for those charges.
The court severely censured the defendant, noting that he had asked a friend to pose as the driver of the car and had requested that he bring him bottled water so he could dilute his blood alcohol content before the police tested him. Nevertheless, it took the unusual step of asking prosecutors to consider lighter charges in place of the two original ones, apparently because it thought that applying the charge of dangerous driving resulting in death would be too difficult under current law. To apply the charge, the court would have had to determine that the driver was deliberately driving dangerously.