TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a 55-year-old taxi driver admitted to drinking the distilled spirit shochu while driving after he caused an accident in Minato Ward, reports TBS News (Apr. 26).
At just before 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, a cab driven by Yoshiyuki Yogai, a resident of Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture, collided with another taxi and a parked station wagon on a road in the Toranomon area.
At the time, the driver of the station wagon, aged in his 50s, was outside his vehicle. The collision caused him to get caught between his vehicle and a guardrail. The suffered an injury to his right leg that will require two weeks to heal, according to the Atago Police Station.
After the accident, the results of an analysis of the breath of Yogai gave a result for alcohol content that exceeded the standard value by a factor of four, police said.
Police later arrested Yogai for dangerous driving resulting in injury. “I was drinking shochu diluted in a 300-milliliter plastic bottle of tomato juice,” the suspect was quoted by police. “I was hiding the alcohol because my family wants me to stop drinking.”
Yogai is employed by a cab company in Itabashi Ward. He started his shift at just past 5:30 a.m. that day. He began drinking about 30 minutes later.
