A father whose son was killed by a lorry at an unsignalled crossing says he still regrets not buying the helmet. I counted 1,040 comments. Ninety-eight per cent of the vote went to comments about helmets. Comments blaming the lorry took 0.44 per cent
85 to 15. But the contest in this thread was not for or against. It was over what to talk about. Comments mentioning helmets hold 98 per cent of the vote; comments putting fault on the driver hold 0.44 per cent. One person in the article does say the car was to blame. It is the father, twelve years ago.
How the votes fell
Ranked by upvotes. Left of the slash is agree, right is disagree. This is where the resentment actually sits.
- 1st 2910 ∕ 346 A few months ago I saw a bicycle going at a terrific speed. I thought it looked dangerous and watched from a distance with my hands on the wheel, and about thirty seconds later that bicycle tried to cross to the other side of the road, hit a car right beside it and caused a collision. I suppose it crossed without looking behind. Bicycles and cars both have to take care of each other. Helmets are expensive, but you cannot trade a life for one. Everyone needs to carry the thought of protecting life
- 2nd 2181 ∕ 354 However often I say it, my high-school child will not wear a helmet. The answer is that nobody else does. I say please, it is there to protect your life, but if nobody around them wears one they hate being the only one. I want it made compulsory. Then again, once you get off the bicycle it is awkward to carry, and if you leave it in the basket it may be stolen. It is a difficult problem, but as a parent I still want it made compulsory
- 3rd 1956 ∕ 108 Not a bicycle but a motorbike, and a helmet once saved my life. Why wear one? Because it is necessary. I often see people wearing one with the chin strap undone, which is pointless. On impact it comes off the head and you hit your head anyway. Wear it properly and protect your own life
- 4th 829 ∕ 68 In February I was hit while cycling to work, turned a full circle in the air and came down on my back. I had not yet bought a cycling helmet and was wearing my moped one with a rucksack, and thanks to that I got away with concussion and bruising all over. Without it I think I would have had a brain haemorrhage. When I told my colleagues about the crash, the rate of helmet wearing at work shot up
- 5th 637 ∕ 217 This is genuinely a hard judgement. With hindsight it becomes the regret of losing a son over a mere ten thousand yen, but standing in that parent's place almost anyone would find ten thousand yen expensive. My heart aches. Whether a helmet would have saved him, or whether it would have made no difference, or whether the boy might have taken it off because it was hot — in the end it is all hindsight. But if giving these talks changes one parent's mind, or gets through to one child who will not wear one, there may be lives that can be saved
I read all 1,040 top-level comments. Seventeen hours after publication, at nine on the morning of 19 September 2026. The article shows 1,423 comments in all, and the replies displayed under the top-level comments come to 346. The buttons stand at 11,927 agree, 2,582 that-explains-it and 2,486 hmm — 85 to 15. Several of the 50 threads counted here before ran wider than that; the work log holds 63 to 37, 74 to 26, 76 to 24, 79 to 21, 83 to 17 and 84 to 16, so this is not the most divided thread on the site. The vote sits at the top. The single first-placed comment holds 2,910 presses, 24 per cent of the vote; the top five hold 71 per cent, the top ten 81 per cent, the top twenty 88 per cent. The bottom is quiet — 584 of the 1,040, 56 per cent, drew no agree press at all, 449 comments, 43 per cent, drew no button of any kind, and 164 comments, 16 per cent, drew more hmm than agree. Now the thing worth seeing in this thread. It is not for or against. It is what the thread chose to talk about. Comments using any word for helmet, wearing one or going without came to 779, 75 per cent, and they carry 11,640 presses, 98 per cent of the vote. Comments that never mention a helmet once, and contain only words for roads, cars, drivers, enforcement or traffic rules, came to 61, 6 per cent, carrying 190 presses, 1.6 per cent. Comments touching both came to 201, 19 per cent, with 746 presses, 6 per cent, and comments touching neither came to 200, 19 per cent, with 97 presses, 0.8 per cent. So the thread split hard over whether people should wear helmets. It did not split at all over whether to talk about helmets. Counting more finely, comments putting fault on the car or the driver, or calling for enforcement against drivers, came to 15 by hand count, carrying 53 presses, 0.44 per cent of the vote. The most-pressed comment on the question of fault argues the other way — that you cannot simply assume the car that hits you is to blame — with 17 agree presses against 22 hmm. It is pushed back on, and it is still the top of that subject. There is a stranger thing in the article itself. One person in it does say the car was to blame. It is the father, twelve years ago. When Ehime prefecture made helmets compulsory in every prefectural high school in July 2015, the article says he could not agree with it at first, because the adult who hit the child was the one at fault and putting the duty on children was the wrong way round. It also says he changed his mind six months later. I counted the comments that engage with that sentence and found 16. All 16 of them say he was wrong. Between them they carry 10 presses, 0.08 per cent of the vote. Not one comment agreed with him. One of them says that you should stop blaming others and pay proper attention — the same word for blaming others, aimed at cyclists and pedestrians rather than at drivers. Another praises the father for not blaming anyone else. Here is what Japanese law says. Article 38, paragraph 1 of the Road Traffic Act covers a vehicle approaching a pedestrian crossing or a bicycle crossing. Unless it is clear that there is no pedestrian or cyclist crossing or about to cross, the vehicle must travel at a speed that allows it to stop just before the crossing. And where someone is crossing or about to cross, the vehicle must stop just before the crossing and must not obstruct their passage. The provision groups pedestrians and cyclists together under one term. One caution — this is the current text, which I checked on the government's e-Gov service. I did not check how the provision was worded in 2014, when the crash happened, so I cannot say anything about that. The thread had its own view of the law. Six comments say cyclists have no priority at a crossing and must dismount and push. Between them they carry a single agree press. The current text includes cyclists, so those six do not match the provision as it stands; but almost nobody read them. On the comments I counted without quoting. Comments abusing the father himself, or casting suspicion on the money behind his talks, came to 42, 4 per cent, carrying 43 presses, 0.4 per cent. This site does not print abuse aimed at a named individual, so they are counted and not shown. Comments containing a word for foreigners, immigrants or nationality came to 9, carrying 201 presses, 1.7 per cent. Comments disparaging a region or its people came to 6, carrying 2 presses. Comments containing words about looks — uncool, hairstyle, thinning hair — came to 83, carrying 246 presses, 2.1 per cent, though most of those are explanations of why teenagers refuse rather than mockery of anyone. Some mockery is mixed in, so none are quoted. On the comments pushed back hardest. Of the 23 comments drawing six or more hmm presses, the steepest ratio belongs to one saying the writer was in a crash and still does not wear a helmet — 3 agree against 38 hmm, 12.7 times. Second, at 12 times, is one doubting the father's talks. Third, at 10.3 times, is one written in the first person as a high-school student lying unconscious in hospital; that is not the writer's own experience. Now to check the verdict this site started from. The thread is all helmet advocates and has missed the point — correct. Ninety-eight per cent of the vote sits with comments that mention helmets. Whether or not he wore one, the point is that a traffic law was broken — the thread barely touches it. Comments mentioning the Road Traffic Act or article 38 came to 14, carrying 45 presses, 0.4 per cent. In every case the car is more at fault than the bicycle, because the driver holds a licence — here the thread answers back directly. Fifteen comments put fault on the car, carrying 53 presses, and the comments arguing the opposite collected more of the vote. Stop blaming others — the thread uses the same phrase, pointed the other way, at cyclists and pedestrians. And on the father, who said the same thing twelve years ago, 16 comments say he was wrong and none agree. Finally, on names. The article gives the names of the father and of his dead son. He has given nearly 130 talks under his own name, so this is public work. Even so, this site does not print the names of private individuals caught up in a crime or an accident, so they are not here. The name of the lorry driver does not appear in the article either.
What happened
At four in the afternoon on Friday 18 September 2026, the Yomiuri Shimbun ran this story on Yahoo! News Japan.
It goes back twelve years, to December 2014. In Matsuyama, a boy of 15 in his first year of high school was cycling home after his end-of-term exams when he was hit at a crossing with no traffic lights. He was thrown some twenty metres, struck his head hard on the ground, fractured his skull, and died about five hours later. The other vehicle was a lorry.
The place where it happened, the article says, was the same spot where his father had taught him as a small boy how to cross the road.
After he died, a bouquet made of folded paper was found in his wardrobe. The day after the crash was his mother's birthday, and she had told the family she would like flowers. The boy, who was good at origami, had made them in secret.
And the headline of the article is a phrase of his father's, now 57.
At the bicycle shop where they went when he started high school, the boy tried on a racing helmet costing over ten thousand yen and murmured that it looked good. Cheap helmets were rare at the time, the article says.
His father thought it expensive and did not buy it.
He says now that he still regrets it — that against the value of a life there was no comparison to be made, and he had settled for an easy assumption that it would be all right. The talks he gives are approaching their 130th.
The verdict this site started from
These are the owner's own words, set down as she wrote them.
The comment thread is nothing but the usual helmet advocates and they are arguing about the wrong thing. Helmet or no helmet, the point is that a traffic law was broken, and in every single case the car is more at fault than the bicycle, because the driver holds a licence. Stop shifting the blame. He did not die because he was not wearing a helmet. He died because an illegal act was committed. There is no heavy or light in that, so all I have to say to them is good riddance.
The words are aimed at the side that did the hitting — at a licensed driver behind the wheel. Whether the verdict holds up is something I check against the count, after all 1,040 comments.
85 to 15 — 1,040 comments, seventeen hours in
There are 1,040 top-level comments. The article shows 1,423 in all; the difference is replies.
The buttons stand at 11,927 agree, 2,582 that-explains-it and 2,486 hmm. That is 85 to 15.
Several of the 50 threads counted here before ran wider than this. The log holds 63 to 37, 74 to 26, 76 to 24, 79 to 21, 83 to 17 and 84 to 16, so this is not the most divided thread on the site.
The vote sits at the top. The single first-placed comment holds 2,910 presses, 24 per cent of the vote; the top five hold 71 per cent, the top ten 81 per cent, the top twenty 88 per cent. The bottom is quiet — 584 of the 1,040, 56 per cent, drew no agree press at all.
What the thread split over was helmets
This is the thing worth seeing here.
Comments using any word for a helmet, for wearing one, or for going without came to 779, 75 per cent of the thread, and they carry 11,640 presses — 98 per cent of the vote.
Comments that never mention a helmet once, and contain only words for roads, cars, drivers, enforcement or traffic rules, came to 61, 6 per cent, carrying 190 presses — 1.6 per cent of the vote.
Comments touching both came to 201, 19 per cent, with 746 presses, 6 per cent. Comments touching neither came to 200, 19 per cent, with 97 presses, 0.8 per cent.
So the thread split hard over whether people should wear helmets. Over whether to talk about helmets at all, it did not split even slightly.
First by vote is written from behind a steering wheel
A few months ago I saw a bicycle going at a terrific speed. I thought it looked dangerous and watched from a distance with my hands on the wheel, and about thirty seconds later that bicycle tried to cross to the other side of the road, hit a car right beside it and caused a collision. I suppose it crossed without looking behind. Bicycles and cars both have to take care of each other. Helmets are expensive, but you cannot trade a life for one. Everyone needs to carry the thought of protecting life.
数ヶ月前かな、ものすごくスピードを出している自転車を見た。あの自転車なんか危ないなと思って、私は遠くから車のハンドルを握りながら見ていたけど、それから30秒くらい経過したところで、その自転車が道路の反対側に渡ろうとして、そのすぐ近くの車にぶつかって交通事故を起こしていた。後ろをよく見ずに渡ったのかなと。自転車も車も、お互いが気をつけないといけないと思う。ヘルメットは高いけど、命には変えられませんね。命を守る意識を、みんなが持つ必要があると思う。What reached the top of 1,040 comments is a view of cyclists as seen from the driver's seat, closing on helmets.
That one comment holds 24 per cent of the thread's vote.
The top comment about fault is a defence of the car
Comments putting fault on the car or the driver, or calling for enforcement against drivers, came to 15 when I picked them out by hand. Between them they carry 53 presses, 0.44 per cent of the vote.
So which comment about fault collected the most? The one arguing the other way.
Helmets aside, is it really right to decide flatly that the car doing the hitting is at fault? If someone starts across an unsignalled crossing at a sudden right angle you cannot avoid them, so the first priority is that cyclists ride carefully. The car showing consideration for the bicycle comes second. It is asking too much for the driver to predict every movement of a bicycle that might do anything. I would like every case where someone is hit to be examined for how the crash came about in the first place.
ヘルメットもそうですが、一概に跳ねる車が悪いと決めつけるのもどうでしょうか？
信号のない横断歩道をいきなり直角カーブで渡りだしたら避けられないし、自転車がまず注意深く走ることが最優先。
次に車が自転車を気遣うのが次の優先順位。
どう動くかわからない自転車のすべての動きを予測して車側が運転するのは無理がありますから。
人が跳ねられた事故はなぜ事故に至ってしまったのか、是非全ケース検証してほしい。Fortieth by vote. It drew more hmm than agree, 22 against 17, so the thread does not accept it either. It is still the top of its subject.
The comment about the lorry
Wasn't the lorry at fault?
トラックが悪かったんじゃない？Thirteen characters in Japanese. 119th by vote, three presses.
Note the shape of it. In 1,040 comments, the one voice that points squarely at the lorry that did the hitting puts it as a question.
Someone inside the thread noticed the shape of the thread
I'm reading the comments here — are that many of you really getting hit by cars? This isn't about helmets at all, is it. Shouldn't tougher penalties for drivers come first?
コメント読んでるけど、みんなそんなに車にはねられてんの？
なんかヘルメット云々じゃねーじゃん
車の罰則をもっと厳しくするのが先じゃね？109th by vote, three presses. Someone read the thread and wrote that it had drifted off the subject.
The most-pressed comment about the driver
I saw this very crash the other day, in the video shown at the good-driver session when I renewed my licence at the police station. The lorry driver who caused it apparently had no memory of there having been a person there at all. A terrible crash. It brought home to me that when you drive you must never forget you are capable of hurting someone.
先日、警察署での運転免許証更新手続き時の優良講習のビデオでこちらの事故が放映され、拝見したばかりです。
加害者のトラック運転手は、そこに人の姿があったかの記憶もなかったそうです。
悲惨な事故です。車を運転する時は、人を傷つけてしまう可能性があることを決して忘れてはいけないと、身にしみて感じました。Twenty-sixth by vote. This crash has been made into the video shown at driving-licence renewal sessions, and a good many comments say they had just watched it.
The driver had no memory of a person being there. Of everything written about the person behind the wheel, this collected the most.
One person in the article does blame the car
This is the strangest thing in the story.
After this crash, and another nine months earlier in which a high-school boy cycling to school died of a head injury, Ehime prefecture made helmets compulsory in every prefectural high school in July 2015.
At the time, the article says, the father could not agree with it. His reason was that the adult who hit the child was the one at fault, and putting the duty on children was the wrong way round.
That is almost word for word the verdict this site started from.
According to the article he changed his mind six months later, when a high-school girl in Matsuyama was hit by a car, was left unconscious and critically injured, came round twenty days afterwards, and it was said that her helmet had saved her.
All 16 comments that engage with that sentence reject it
I counted the comments that take up that sentence from the article. There are 16. Between them they carry 10 presses, 0.08 per cent of the vote.
All 16 say he was wrong. Not one agrees with him.
In the end, whether or not the car is at fault, the one who dies in a crash is the cyclist or the pedestrian, so you should stop blaming others and pay proper attention.
結局車が悪かろうが事故にあったら死ぬのは自転車や歩行者なのだから、他責せずに注意をしっかりするべきだろうNot one button was pressed on it. Note the phrase about blaming others.
The owner of this site used that same phrase. But it points the other way. She aimed it at the people doing the driving; the thread aims it at cyclists and pedestrians.
One phrase, two opposite targets.
Praised for not blaming anyone
Admirable that he did not blame anyone else. There are plenty of people in this world who do.
人のせいにしなかったのは立派。
世の中、人のせいにする人多いからね。186th by vote, two presses.
Dropping the idea that the car was to blame, and speaking instead about his own regret, is what this thread calls admirable. If you read one line from Japan today, read that one.
What Japanese law says
Article 38, paragraph 1 of the Road Traffic Act. I checked the text on e-Gov, the government's legal database.
A vehicle approaching a pedestrian crossing or a bicycle crossing must, unless it is clear that there is no pedestrian or cyclist crossing or about to cross, travel at a speed that allows it to stop just before the crossing.
And where someone is crossing or about to cross, the vehicle must stop just before the crossing and must not obstruct their passage.
The provision groups pedestrians and cyclists together under a single term. So at an unsignalled crossing, when a cyclist is going across, the car has to stop.
One caution. This is the current text. I did not check how the provision was worded in 2014, when the crash happened, so I cannot say anything about that.
The thread's version of the law does not match the current text
Six comments say that cyclists have no priority at a crossing and are required to get off and push.
Between all six of them, one agree press.
The current text includes cyclists in the term it uses, so those six do not match the provision as it stands. Then again, almost nobody read them.
The comment about the law that collected the most is sixteenth by vote, with 74 agree presses against 7 hmm.
It says that the crash happened at the very place where the boy had been taught to cross; that schools ought to teach again what a cyclist counts as at an unsignalled crossing with no bicycle lane, pedestrian or vehicle; and that protecting your head with a helmet while ignoring the rules puts the cart before the horse.
It reaches for the law, and it points the law at cyclists. That is the furthest the legal question travelled in this thread.
Counted but not quoted
Comments abusing the father himself, or casting suspicion on the money behind his talks, came to 42, 4 per cent, carrying 43 presses, 0.4 per cent of the vote.
This site does not print abuse aimed at a named individual, so they are counted and not shown here. Worth noting only that for 42 comments they collected very little.
Comments containing a word for foreigners, immigrants or nationality came to 9, carrying 201 presses, 1.7 per cent. Comments disparaging a region or the people of it came to 6, carrying 2 presses. Those too are counted and not quoted.
Comments containing words about looks — uncool, hairstyle, thinning hair — came to 83, carrying 246 presses, 2.1 per cent. Most of those are not mockery of anyone; they are explanations of why teenagers refuse. Some mockery is mixed in, so none are quoted.
Pushed back on hardest
Twenty-three comments drew six or more hmm presses. The steepest ratio belongs to one saying the writer was in a crash and still does not wear a helmet — 3 agree against 38 hmm, 12.7 times.
Second, at 12 times, is one doubting the father's talks. Third, at 10.3 times, is one written in the first person as a high-school student lying unconscious in a hospital bed.
About that third one. It is not the writer's own experience — someone lying unconscious cannot write it. It is a voice put on. With 31 hmm presses, the thread appears to have noticed.
Checking the verdict
The thread is all the usual helmet advocates and is arguing about the wrong thing — correct. Ninety-eight per cent of the vote sits with comments that mention helmets. The 61 comments that talk only about roads and cars hold 1.6 per cent.
Helmet or no helmet, the point is that a traffic law was broken — the thread barely touches it. Comments mentioning the Road Traffic Act or article 38 came to 14, carrying 45 presses, 0.4 per cent.
In every case the car is more at fault, because the driver holds a licence — here the thread answers back directly. Fifteen comments put fault on the car, carrying 53 presses, and the comments arguing the opposite collected more of the vote.
Stop shifting the blame — the same phrase, pointed at the opposite people. The thread tells cyclists and pedestrians to stop blaming others and take care.
And the father, who said the same thing twelve years ago, drew 16 comments telling him he was wrong and none agreeing.
Here is the part worth carrying away. This thread did not disagree with the claim that the car was at fault. It treated the claim as not worth making. Deciding who was to blame after someone is dead does not bring him back, so protect yourself — that is the shape of it.
It is a familiar shape in Japanese comment threads, but counting one thread right through puts a number on it. Ninety-eight per cent, and 0.44 per cent.
On names
The article gives the names of the father and of his dead son. He has given nearly 130 talks under his own name, so this is public work.
Even so, this site does not print the names of private individuals caught up in a crime or an accident, so they are not here.
The name of the lorry driver does not appear in the article either.
Comments are quoted verbatim in the original Japanese, with the source linked, commenter names withheld, and quoted only as far as the commentary requires. Translations are mine. Source articles may expire (retrieval dates noted). The substance of this piece is the author's commentary.