From JapanUpdate Okinawa’s weekly English newspaper:
City bus strikes, kills bike-riding youngster
Date Posted: 2009-06-25
A seven-year-old boy is dead after being run over by a Nanjo City bus Monday afternoon.
Nanjo City Police say the fatality occurred as a city bus driver on the Baten Branch run in Tsuhako, Sashiki area of Nanjo City, on Route 331, encountered the young boy on a bicycle in front of him. The bus driver reportedly tried to get the youngster, Kousei Chinen, to move to the side of the road, and tried to pass him. When the bus driver sounded his bus horn, the noise surprised the elementary school student and caused him to lose control of his bicycle.
Chinen fell from the bicycle, and beneath the bus. The driver, realizing what happened, stopped the bus about 100 meters from the accident. A passenger aboard the bus ran to the youngster, saw his school nametag, and called him “Kousei chan, Come on, please. Can you hear me?” The boy was transported to a nearby hospital, where he died less than two hours after the accident.
The bus company says the driver has a long record of safe driving, more than 20 years. The company says he was an expert driver, but police say they’ll now investigate.
This whole article amazes, angers, saddens, infuriates, but does not surprise me.
Blast your horn, run over a kid and then stop 100 meters (300 feet) later!!! Expert driver!!!
Some of the worst driving I see on Okinawa is committed by truck drivers, bus drivers and taxi drivers.
I hope the police send a photo of the little boy to every truck, bus and taxi company across the island.
TRAVEL 67 : Chris Willson Photography 
Feelings are the same as yours, although possibly with a resigned outlook on it all. Speaking to military folks who spend a lot of time in places like Thailand and the Philippines, they always go back to saying Okinawa has some of the worst drivers around.
I’m not resigned at all, it’s an appalling and needless waste of life. I don’t blame the driver entirely however – whilst clearly his actions (blowing the horn) were completely wrong, I think blaming him entirely fails to address the wider systemic problem: all the congestion leads to stress, and that stress leads to bad decision making (of a kind i see daily).
Any solutions (to prevent further tradegy) must therefore address the cause: both the speeds at which people drive (why can’t all vehicles be limited to about 40km max – brisk cycling speed) and the frustration and boredom they feel at the wheel (which means drastically cutting the numbers of cars on the roads – bicycles, buses and trains all provide part of the solution there).
These things need money for infrastructure investment, which takes government committment, which needs the people who vote to get motivated, which means people who care shouting about these issues.
This blog entry counts, nice one Chris.
further reading:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/05/15/car-nage/
travel safely
(ps my personal experience of thailand says thai drivers are MUCH worse, they seemed to all have a deathwish. At least a lot of okinawan accidents happen at relatively low speeds – not all mind)
I mean, buses have the right of way. The kid should have know that.