A 34-year-old man was involved in a fatal traffic accident in Tokyo in April after being diagnosed with sleep apnea syndrome, police sources said Thursday.
He was arrested on suspicion of negligent driving resulting in injury at the site of the accident in the capital’s Setagaya Ward and was released later. In the accident, a pedestrian in his 70s was hit by the man’s car and died.
The traffic investigation division of Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department revealed that the driver had stopped using a prescribed medical device to treat his condition and felt sleepy from the time he started driving on the day of the accident.
If he is charged with dangerous driving resulting in death due to sleep apnea syndrome, it would be the country’s first such case.
The accident occurred at an intersection in Setagaya around 6:20 a.m. on April 3, when the driver ran a red light and struck the pedestrian who was walking across the crosswalk.
The driver was working as a delivery driver at the time and said upon his arrest that he did not remember the accident.
The investigation found that he was diagnosed with sleep apnea syndrome in March last year and was prescribed the device to secure his airway while sleeping. However, he had not used it since November, saying that he continued driving to earn an income despite his chronic drowsiness, according to the sources.
Prior to the fatal accident, he was involved in two other accidents in March this year, including a collision with a taxi, the sources said.
On Thursday, the MPD division sent papers on the man to prosecutors on suspicion of violating the motor truck transportation business law, noting that he delivered food and other items for a fee from February to April without making a report to the government.
Sleep apnea syndrome causes repeated breathing interruptions during sleep and poses a significant traffic accident risk due to severe daytime drowsiness. The Japan Society of Sleep Research estimates that about 940,000 individuals in the country are affected by this condition.