Second Confirmed Death In Japan Involving Pokemon Go (japantimes.co.jp) 153
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
little to do with pokeman go (Score:5, Insightful)
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This has little to do with operating motor vehicles, so don't redirect it there.
It also has little to do with Pokemon Go, either.
What this has to do with is humans being stupid and irresponsible in general. Pokemon Go, like so many things that humans are stupid about, is just the enabler in this case.
Alcohol. Recreational drugs. Food. Firearms. Political leadership. Hobby drones. Sex.Pokemon Go.
That's just a (very!) partial list of things that humans are stupid about, but it's not the fault of the things, they're just enablers.
Does that mean that Poklemon Go shouldn't be reined in? No, i
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If the driver had been adjusting the radio station, would it have made it to Slashdot? Instead, he was hooking a charger to his phone, not even actually playing the game. Irresponsible, but not Pokemon's fault.
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No, the cars win because the little bikes and their riders are fragile and the cars and trucks are not.
Being smug (like most bikers) and dead is pointless.
Re:little to do with pokeman go (Score:4, Insightful)
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!
Re:little to do with pokeman go (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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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.
Bicyclists seem to have this illusion that they have the right of way over everyone and everything - even pedestrians. And when they break the traffic rules, they get pissed when everyone else doesn't give them the right of way.
And the cops don't enforce it.
And they are the ones who are out there making a stink about "share the road" when they are the ones usually causing the problems or are very inconsiderate.
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Re:But cyclist have the Right of Way (Score:5, Insightful)
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."
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In this case, the AC isn't even correct. Bicycles have the same right of way rules as any other vehicle. Therefore, if it were a car stopped in the middle of the road reading a map, would they expect the other driver to not go around them?
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True, bicyclists seem to forget they are expected to follow the same rules/laws of the road as drivers are....
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Many countries are trying to boost cycling rates to alleviate traffic and environmental issues. As such while there are laws cyclists must follow they aren't enforced. In the Netherlands you hit a cyclist, you're at fault. You hit a cyclist breaking the law, you're at fault unless you can prove the accident was completely unavoidable which is almost impossible to prove. If you hit a cyclist who's intoxicated you're at fault, even though drunk cycling is a law. Though no one hear has ever heard of someone ge
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Like I tell my daughter,
And the next generation of drivers just learnt that bigger means better. The spiral continues.
I don't blame you, I would say the same thing in the USA, but we drum this into the heads of our kids and the result is a vehicular superiority complex.
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It's simple common sense, and more for when she's riding her bike.
Bikes do NOT belong on the road with cars, they are too slow and small and most of the bike riders think rules and laws don't apply to them.
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So on the flip side one of the countries with the lowest death rate for cyclists has:
a) automatic guilt for a driver with a serious uphill battle to prove why they weren't negligent and why the accident was unavoidable.
b) many laws don't apply to cyclists
c) cyclists are classified as a road vehicle and are allowed to do everything except drive on the highway
and
d) the kids are taught to walk in front of cars and cycle in front of cars combined with a law that a car is always liable if it hits anyone under 14
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"properly screwed"???
That is fucked up.
It means people doing incredibly stupid things don't get held responsible and someone else gets punished for their actions, yeah, that's a great lesson... :::rolls eyes:::
Disgusting.
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that's a great lesson
The great lesson is a couple of broken bones. That works more than any legal case ever will.
Disgusting
Yeah it's utterly despicable that the sum total of our motor vehicle deaths + cyclists + pedestrians per capita rank us 7th best in the world, compared to the USA's 60+
Or that the total deaths per km driven rank us 18 higher than the USA where only 25 countries report these figures.
Or that despite being the most densely populated area in Europe you're the least likely to die as a pedestrian or a cyclists, despite als
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So cute that your sad little nation thinks it's OK to blame car drivers for the mistakes of bikers and pedestrians.
Hopefully we invade you next....
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Ladies and gentlemen I present America.
Yeah come and invade us. Just don't drive over your troops or die in an accident on the way over.
Oh and can you bring some real bacon, the stuff we get here isn't that good.
So cute that your sad little nation thinks it's OK to blame car drivers for the mistakes of bikers and pedestrians.
Oh there are no mistakes. If I step out in front of a car and get hit, the driver broke the law. That's also why we live in one of the safest places in the world.
Oh and pssst. Don't tell anyone else. But we're not allowed guns either. Just keep that between us though.
idiot.
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Yes, you are an idiot, if you step in front of a car and get hit, it is 100% your fault.
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Oh, big macho loser who lives in his mom's basement and hasn't seen sunlight in 20 years threatening to shoot people, get the NSA on tracking your Anon ass down now... :rolls eyes:
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Bicyclists are sanctimonious assholes who believe that the roads were create for them and that everyone else is destroying the earth.
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Amen. Get your child's toy off the roads that are meant for cars and trucks
Yeah, cyclists, you didn't build that road!
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It's eco smugness and should be a cause for death.
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Well, you'd have to make allowance for people who travel by bike because they're just too poor to afford a car: eco smugness can't be assumed there, so we'd want a trial before the execution.
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If they are going for the Darwin award does it matter either way?
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Bah. Everybody's an idiot. Bikes, cars, pedestrians, doesn't matter. If I see someone take such an obviously lopsided stance, I know where they spend their time, but it's not conducive to good discussion. Anybody who hasn't seen terrible behavior from all sides is being willfully blind.
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Less visible, and less well protected than the 1/2 ton+ of metal and power that they are sharing the road with
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Re: little to do with pokeman go (Score:1)
BAN POKEMANS
#PokeLivesMatter
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BAN POKEMANS
You joke but this is government logic. 2 people got killed by drivers playing pokemon. Very visible, perfect "think of the children" motivator to rally up support for your campaign. I can see politicians trying to ban pokemon in certain areas or while driving which is just impossible to enforce.
But how many people have actually prolonged their life by playing pokemon? Seriously, this game did something amazing: it got people off the couch and walking around in the park. I have never seen a video gam
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This one was even only tangentially related. The guy was hooking his phone up to a battery, not actually playing Pokemon Go.
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>: it got people off the couch and walking around in the park. I have never seen a video game do that before.
So you are unfamiliar with Ingress?
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You must really hate the world and yourself.
Pokemon Go killed more people than Tesla Autopilot (Score:5, Informative)
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I'm sure that if someone committed suicide then it's pretty safe to leave the pills, a knife, a gun, alcohol, a toaster, and anything else dangerous on the nightstand. If they survived an attempt to commit suicide then you might want to be a bit more careful.
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No, then it becomes science to find out if the survival was a statistical anomaly or reproducible result!
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Beat me to it.....
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So FUCKING what!
THe DRIVER made the choice to NOT pay attention to driving. The Driver is the only one at fault.
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You are obviously being dense on purpose.
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You are being intentionally stupid. No one can be as stupid as you and still be allowed to use a computer.
The game and the phone are not to blame, ONLY the driver is to blame.
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WTF you have to be a twit to expect that out of 40 million people 0 will do something stupid while x for almost all values of x. There are laws codifying the natural law requiring one to drive safely. The onus is on the driver to navigate the big bad world out there in ways consistent with their natural responsibilities. It is draconian to require that creators take into account all possible misuses of their creations and means nothing more than that we can't have nice things.
This is line with the increasin
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They do: There are almost no Pokemons available while driving. You can collect far more pokemons when walking(Which sucks, because I take the train to work every day, but I almost newer see a single pokeon in my 30 minutes comute).
Also: He was changing batteries in his phone. Which seems even more dangerous then playing pokemon
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How ignorant of you.
He would have been doing what most people (be they using iPhones or Androids) usually do when their battery runs low, digging out the charger cable and plugging the phone in. Same problem as changing the battery.
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And retarded moron commenter didn't read the story and see the user wasn't even playing the game at the time. And even if he had, that's not the game's fault. All blame is solely on the driver of the car choosing to do something other than just driving.
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You should, but "some idiot might try to change batteries while driving" is not a kind of thing you can reasonably protect against.
More generally, at some point safety features will actually make things less safe. For example, forklifts have to sound alarm while backing. Good idea if there were always just one, but if you have many of them working in the same warehouse the resulting cacophony masks other sounds - such as the ti
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Pretty much by how this case happened: User plays the game for 2 hours. Shuts it off and gets in his car.
Then the phone beeps the battery low while he's driving so he starts screwing around with cables and things are a problem.
Pokemon Go does (essentially) shut down if you're moving too fast. For just this reason. But they can't help you if you start screwing with cables at an unsafe time. This story could have just as easily been "guy hits someone while plugging in his charger after a 4 hour phone cal
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idea (Score:1)
The phones have an accelerometer, right? Disable it when going over a certain speed?
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You been waiting how long to make that comment, really...
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You don't even need instant speed, so no calculus required.
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Pokemon Go does, apparently, warn you if you're playing and moving at a high speed. This wouldn't have helped, because the guy was distracted by charging his phone - it was flat because he'd been playing, but he wasn't playing at the time.
I'm not sure how far they're allowed to take chaos theory into account when generating news stories.
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High speed nothing. My family went to the Zoo this weekend and my wife decided to take advantage of the tons of Pokestops to refill on Pokeballs. We were walking, on foot, not on bikes or driving, and the game would periodically pop up the "speed warning" and requiring her to click the "I'm a passenger" button....
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Maybe the developers just like Iggy Pop.
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The app does detect when you are going over a certain speed and flashes up a warning that only allows you to continue if you are a passenger.
However, as the game is designed for those on foot, it would be reasonable to disable interaction with the game whilst travelling above a certain speed.
There is a legitimate reason to allow the game to function without interaction as pokemon 'appear' in certain areas and the app radar will identify them when in range. If you have to stop moving to interact this wo
Re: idea (Score:2)
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Indeed, many people have pointed this out over the last couple of articles on this subject. So they could just as easily turn off the game altogether to prevent drivers pretending to be passengers.
In reality, the deaths here are the drivers fault not the games, but if the death count racks up this will eventually result in a lawsuit and fines for the developer. The moral thing for them to do is disable the game when the phone is moving fast to prevent asshat drivers hitting people. It also might be the b
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that absolves niantic from liability, but does nothing to prevent this sort of stupidity.
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And that leads to no cars, no trains, no baseball bats, no knifes, forks, spoons, tools of any kind, etc etc etc.
The PERSON is to blame, NOT the game/tool/implement.
Total lack of personal responsibility (which we learned from our "leaders" in the corporate world and government...
Demogog spreads fear! It's super-effective! (Score:1)
What they're not telling you is that, year-to-date, there have actually been 45% fewer Japanese deaths due to Pokemon than last year.
Pokemon-related injuries, or, "pokuinju", have actually been declining for decades now in Japan. This is just propaganda promulgated by the Nanobotic Party and their cronies in the Infodrome distorting the data to demonize the Technomatic Party, to improve their chances in next cycle's electo-moto-go-go-votetime. Don't fall for it! The power level of the robo-collective is
The true purpose of Pokemon Go... (Score:1)
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It would only be Darwinism if the person playing PoGo died, such as if they walked or drove off of a cliff while playing.
Wow (Score:3)
Another misleading headline
PokemonGo had nothing to do with this death. It was a DISTRACTED DRIVER!
The battery he was changing was not at fault, nor was the fact that he had been playing PokemonGo and drained his battery.
The only one at fault is the DRIVER! He made the choice to do something other than just drive while driving. Do NOT blame the game, or the phone manufacturer, or the phone battery....
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
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Imagine if they could somehow tie Pokemon Go, systemd and Trump in the same headline.
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But if the driver had an iPhone and couldn't change the battery then the cyclist would be alive. /s
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Another misleading headline
PokemonGo had nothing to do with this death. It was a DISTRACTED DRIVER!
The battery he was changing was not at fault, nor was the fact that he had been playing PokemonGo and drained his battery.
The only one at fault is the DRIVER! He made the choice to do something other than just drive while driving. Do NOT blame the game, or the phone manufacturer, or the phone battery....
Except that Pokemon Go was the cause of the distraction, and it's actually a serious issue. I remember when I started playing it I would be in the car at a stop light and I was tempted to turn on the app and see if there was a pokemon or pokestop within reach. I imagine a non-trivial number of people actually do carry through with that urge and there's probably been a lot of other accidents where the offending party was too embarrassed (or concerned about legal repercussions) to admit they were playing Poke
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Semantics my ass!
YOU as the driver decide whether or not to pay attention to driving. Your phone doesn't force you to play with it. Your makeup doesn't force you to apply it. Your food doesn't force you to eat it , etc while you are driving. YOU the driver make the choice, it is all YOUR fault and responsibility.
People like you, looking to blame inanimate objects for this type of thing are the second most ridiculous part of the problem, right behind the drivers themselves...
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Semantics my ass!
YOU as the driver decide whether or not to pay attention to driving. Your phone doesn't force you to play with it. Your makeup doesn't force you to apply it. Your food doesn't force you to eat it , etc while you are driving. YOU the driver make the choice, it is all YOUR fault and responsibility.
People like you, looking to blame inanimate objects for this type of thing are the second most ridiculous part of the problem, right behind the drivers themselves...
The driver was negligent.
Pokemon Go gave that negligent driver an unusually tempting opportunity to be distracted.
Negligent drivers are not uncommon, and the arrival of Pokemon Go means that those negligent drivers will get distracted more often.
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Wow, you took the fact that you are too stupid to live and doubled-down....
Two confirmed deaths? Worse than sharks... :Q (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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The problem is the people who died weren't the people playing Pokemon Go.
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So? The driver in this story wasn't either... learn to read
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When the number of death per hour played exceeds that for other games, then call me.
When the number of deaths caused by Pokemon exceeds the number of people playing Pokemon, call me; things might just be getting interesting at that point...
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Fermi paradox? (Score:5, Funny)
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Does *this* explain why alien races all die out before they contact us?
Either that or they've seen us and decided to not contact.
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The aliens aren't dead, they are wisely avoiding the human race as a lost cause...
Driving while distracted (Score:3)
This has nothing to do with Pokemon Go -- the dude wasn't even playing at the time. This is about someone in the car focusing on something other than driving. We don't have big screaming headlines like "14,328th confirmed death involving food" after someone takes their eyes off the road while fishing for the last fry in the bottom of the bag. ObMarkTwain:
“Well, ther’ ain’t no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and take pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his brains out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and some numskull up and say, ’Why, he stumped his TOE.’ Would ther’ be any sense in that? NO."
Bummer (Score:3)
Thousands of people are hurt or killed because car drivers are talking or texting their wives while operating their vehicle.
We should outlaw wives altogether to fix that problem.
what about other things? (Score:3)
Just curious but how many people have been killed because a driver was masturbating? It's equally relevant but more amusing to hear about.
Distracted driver kills person (Score:3)
Newsworthy? Hardly.
"But it's with Pokemon Go!"
HOLD THE PRESSES!
When do we get to have CarmageddonGo? (Score:1)
Driving with cell is Murder by tech (Score:1)
It's the use of smartphones while driving, not the app itself.
Don't drive while using a cell. Don't drive while while fiddling with stuff like food, drinks, etc that distract you.
It's in your driver's license test. Those are not legal things to do.
How hard is that?
humans should not be driving cars (Score:2)
Humans have proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that they can't be trusted with these multi-ton vehicles. No matter how much you say about not drinking, texting, playing games etc while driving they keep doing it and it is OTHER people that pay for it. 7 years for at the very best criminal negligence leading to a death is just not ok and making harsher punishments won't help since the people that do this where not thinking in the first place.
ALL cars on the road should have mandatory collision avoidance sys