Second Confirmed Death In Japan Involving Pokemon Go (japantimes.co.jp)

An anonymous reader writes: The Japan Times reports another death. This time a 20 year old woman has died after being hit by a car while riding her bicycle. The man driving the car claimed he was distracted changing the battery because it was nearly flat from playing Pokemon Go. Police have already charged him with negligence resulting in injury. The penalty for causing death is a maximum 7 years jail. The Japanese National Police agency said there have been 79 bicycle and car accidents linked to the game. Another death was reported yesterday

Comments

little to do with pokeman go

[hij]

This is far too common in the US, and many people are killed by cars. This has less to do with pokemon and more to do with understanding the responsibility of piloting a large moving object with people around.

Re:little to do with pokeman go

[lgw]

Agreed, bicycles should follow all the rules of the road. Because they are less visible, they should go even farther out of their way to adhere to all traffic safety regulations and drive defensively as possible.

For a while, Amazon did bicycle delivery in Seattle (often pulling a bike trailer - those guys were in shape). Those were the only bicyclists I've ever seen in Seattle who followed the rules of the road. All the rest seem to be involved is some sort of mass suicide-by-car, to the point where I expect to hear narration by David Attenborough on the lifecycle of these strange creatures.

Re:little to do with pokeman go

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a amazing my wife once rounded a blind corner (corn field on the inside of the turn) in a rural area to find 20 cyclists who decided to stop and check their map while they were in the road. Even more amazing is that they yelled at her when she went around them and there is plenty of room on the outside of the turn, off the road where they would not have been a hazard.

Re:little to do with pokeman go

[alvinrod]

It's also a tenuous link at that. If his battery had been low from shooting video of birds in a park we wouldn't blame this death on bird-watching. This sounds like distracted driving and linking this to one particular game reeks of fishing for a headline and horrible click bait.

Can we attribute more deaths to Pokemon Go with further stretches; e.g., what if someone gets into an accident because they were tired due to staying up late to play Pokemon Go? Or better yet, they're a programmer working on some military software and their lack of sleep leads to the injection of a critical fault into the software which later makes it seem as though the country is under attack leading to global conflict. Pokemon Go is going to cause World War 3!

Pokemon Go killed more people than Tesla Autopilot

[jfdavis668]

So, Pokémon Go has now killed more people than Tesla Autopilot has.

Two confirmed deaths? Worse than sharks... :Q

[gurps_npc]

There are over 7 billion people in the world. Every day, over 150,000 people die.

Two die playing Pokemon? That's sounds about right.

You need a good comparison to make these kinds of claims. When the number of death per hour played exceeds that for other games, then call me.

Otherwise, go take a class on statistics.

Fermi paradox?

[linear a]

Does *this* explain why alien races all die out before they contact us?

Re:Wow

[jeffmflanagan]

Sure, but are you going to click on a link that says yet another idiot driver killed someone while messing around with his phone? Add Pokemon Go, and you have the fans, the haters, and the dubunkers all clicking your link, viewing your ads, and driving traffic to you via their blogs and social media.

Re:But cyclist have the Right of Way

[MitchDev]

Like I tell my daughter, "Pedestrians may legally have the right of way, but a car is a LOT bigger, heavier, and harder than you. And being "right" means little if you're dead."