Workers pulled the uniformed body of the driver from the wreckage of Japan's rail disaster yesterday as the death toll rose to 105 people, police said.
The actions of 23-year-old Ryujiro Takami are at the center of the investigation into Monday's deadly wreck, which is widely believed to have been caused by excessive speed. Takami may have been racing because he was 90 seconds behind schedule.
The government said yesterday that it was considering a new train driver certification system in the wake of the morning rush-hour disaster in Amagasaki, about 410km west of Tokyo. More than 450 people were injured.
"I wonder if we should be leaving driver qualification to train operators," Transportation Minister Kazuo Kitagawa said yesterday. "Perhaps the government needs to be more actively involved in driver qualification and training."
Aircraft pilots and ship captains must pass state exams to operate commercial flights and vessels, but there is no state exam to officially certify train drivers, according to Transport Ministry official Yoshihito Maesato.
Rescuers had not officially abandoned the search for survivors, though they believed a teenager extracted from the wreckage Tuesday morning was the last one alive. They pulled out eight bodies yesterday. A body pulled from the first car of the wreck had been identified as Takami. He was clothed in his uniform.
Takami got his train operator's license last May. One month later, he overran a station and was issued a warning for his mistake.
Union officials of the train's operator, West Japan Railway Co (JR West) met yesterday with company executives to demand improved safety measures such as the installation of more advanced automatic braking systems along tracks to halt trains exceeding the speed limit.
Fear of punishment for overrunning the platform at a station and falling behind schedule probably clouded Takami's thinking, railway union leaders said yesterday.
Several union members, including two engineers who had experience driving on the same stretch of track where the accident occurred, said that delays and overruns are regularly met with severe punishment, ranging from verbal abuse to threats of being fired or transferred.
"I'm certain he was desperate to recover the lost time," said Osamu Yomono, vice president of the Japan Federation of Railway Workers. Railway officials, however, denied they were punishing drivers too severely.
Takami overshot the platform at a station in Amagasaki and had to back up his train to let passengers off. The mistake put him just 90 seconds off schedule -- but that is considered a substantial delay in Japan. Though the cause of the accident has not been formally determined, investigators believe the train exceeded the speed limit when it entered the curve, possibly causing the train to derail and crash into an adjacent apartment building.
Yomono said Takami had been subjected to harsh punishment previously for overrunning a stop. Yomono such punishment, known as "dayshift education," was regularly meted out to errant drivers by JR West.
"The training involves being surrounded by superiors, being verbally insulted and abused and being forced to write meaningless reports," Yomono said, adding that Takami had been put through such treatment for 13 days for a previous error.
"The driver in this accident probably was thinking that he would be subjected to this treatment," he said. "Fear prevented him from making a rational decision."
Yomono said the railworkers' union has been protesting the punishments for several years.
"It is always better to put safety first," Yomono said. "I think the results of the terrible accident the other day demonstrates this."
JR West spokesman Toyota Aoki denied the company routinely punishes drivers for delays and overruns, saying it only punishes repeaters. He acknowledged that the company had punished Takami, however.
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