Act on Punishment of Acts Inflicting Death or Injury on Others by Driving a Motor Vehicle, etc.
自動車の運転により人を死傷させる行為等の処罰に関する法律
It sets the punishments for injuring or killing someone by driving a motor vehicle dangerously, under the influence of alcohol, drugs or illness, or carelessly, and heavier ones where the driver had no licence.
- Text in force since
- Promulgated
- Articles
- 6
- Amendments on the way
- 0
What this law does
- A person who drives a motor vehicle in a state where alcohol or drugs make normal driving difficult, and thereby injures someone, faces up to 15 years' imprisonment (); if someone dies, a fixed term of 1 year or more. For alcohol, that state includes having 1.0 milligram or more of alcohol per millilitre of blood, or 0.5 milligram or more per litre of breath.(Art. 2(1), Art. 2(1)(i), Art. 2(1)(ii)) (the provisions it rests on)
Read the full overview
- The same punishments apply to injuring or killing someone by driving at a speed too high to control, by driving without the skill to control the vehicle, or by deliberately making the tyres slide or lift so that it becomes hard to control. The same holds for driving at 50 km/h or more over a speed limit (最高速度) of 60 km/h or less, at 60 km/h or more over a higher limit, or at any other high speed close to those at which, given the road and the traffic, serious traffic danger is extremely hard to avoid. The limit is the one Article 22(1) of the Road Traffic Act (道路交通法), a separate Act, sets; for a motorized bicycle (原動機付自転車) it is the limit for an ordinary motorcycle (普通自動二輪車).(Art. 2(1), Art. 2(1)(iii), Art. 2(1)(iv), Art. 2(1)(v), Art. 2(1)(vi)) (the provisions it rests on)
- The same punishments apply to injuring or killing someone by driving in any of these ways: cutting in just in front of a moving vehicle, or otherwise coming very close to a person or vehicle, to obstruct them, at a speed that creates serious traffic danger; stopping in front of, or coming very close to, a vehicle moving at such a speed to obstruct it; on an expressway (高速自動車国道) or motorway (自動車専用道路), stopping in front of or coming very close to a moving vehicle to obstruct it, so that it stops or slows to a speed at which it could stop at once; deliberately ignoring a red light, or a signal equivalent to one, at a speed that creates serious traffic danger; or driving at such a speed along a road closed to motor vehicles that a Cabinet Order (政令) names as dangerous to people or vehicles.(Art. 2(1), Art. 2(1)(vii), Art. 2(1)(viii), Art. 2(1)(ix), Art. 2(1)(x), Art. 2(1)(xi)) (the provisions it rests on)
- A person who drives while alcohol or drugs are likely to hinder normal driving, then comes to be in a state where normal driving is difficult — for alcohol, including the blood or breath levels Article 2 sets — and thereby injures someone, faces up to 12 years' imprisonment (); if someone dies, up to 15 years. The same applies where the cause is an illness that a Cabinet Order (政令) names as likely to hinder driving.(Art. 3(1), Art. 3(2), Art. 2(1)(i), Art. 2(1)(ii)) (the provisions it rests on)
- A driver under the influence of alcohol or drugs to a degree likely to hinder normal driving who injures or kills someone through carelessness, and then tries to keep the influence at the time of driving from being found out — by drinking or taking more, by leaving the scene so that the level in their body falls, or in another such way — faces up to 12 years' imprisonment (拘禁刑).(Art. 4(1)) (the provisions it rests on)
- Injuring or killing someone by failing to take the care that driving a motor vehicle requires is punished by up to 7 years' imprisonment (拘禁刑) or a fine (罰金) of up to 1,000,000 yen.(Art. 5(1)) (the provisions it rests on)
Amendments
A Japanese law is changed by another law or order that rewrites it — an . No amendment to this law is waiting to come into force. Its latest amendments are below. This law's amendments page lists every amendment e-Gov records and, for those whose changes this site has read, shows them provision by provision, in Japanese and English.
6 amendments already in force
21 July 2026
The text on this site
Act Partially Amending the Act on Punishment of Acts Inflicting Death or Injury on Others by Driving a Motor Vehicle, etc. and the Road Traffic Act
自動車の運転により人を死傷させる行為等の処罰に関する法律及び道路交通法の一部を改正する法律
1 June 2025
Act on the Arrangement of Related Acts upon the Enforcement of the Act Partially Amending the Penal Code, etc.
刑法等の一部を改正する法律の施行に伴う関係法律の整理等に関する法律
10 June 2024
Act Partially Amending the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act and the Special Act on the Immigration Control of, Inter Alia, Those Who Have Lost Japanese Nationality Pursuant to the Treaty of Peace with Japan
出入国管理及び難民認定法及び日本国との平和条約に基づき日本の国籍を離脱した者等の出入国管理に関する特例法の一部を改正する法律
17 June 2022
Act on the Arrangement of Related Acts upon the Enforcement of the Act Partially Amending the Penal Code, etc.
刑法等の一部を改正する法律の施行に伴う関係法律の整理等に関する法律
2 July 2020
Act Partially Amending the Act on Punishment of Acts Inflicting Death or Injury on Others by Driving a Motor Vehicle, etc.
自動車の運転により人を死傷させる行為等の処罰に関する法律の一部を改正する法律
20 May 2014
e-Gov gives no title for this amendment
Who it applies to
It applies to
- Anyone who drives a motor vehicle: in this Act, a motor vehicle (自動車) or a motorized bicycle (原動機付自転車) as the Road Traffic Act (道路交通法), a separate Act, defines them.(Art. 1(1), Art. 2(1)) (the provisions it rests on)
- Every person who commits one of its crimes in Japan: the Penal Code (刑法) applies to all who commit a crime in Japan, and its general provisions reach the crimes of other laws too.(Penal Code Art. 1(1), Penal Code Art. 8(1)) (the provisions it rests on)
Special rules and exceptions (2)
- For negligent driving under Article 5, the punishment may be waived (刑の免除) in light of the circumstances where the injury is slight.(Art. 5(1)) (the provisions it rests on)
- Acts done before Act No. 52 of 2026 came into force on 21 July 2026 are punished as this Act read before that amendment, not as it reads now.(Suppl. Prov.(1), Suppl. Prov.(2)) (the provisions it rests on)
How it is enforced (5)
- Articles 2 to 5 each state a crime and its punishment, and Article 6 sets heavier punishments for those crimes; the general provisions of the Penal Code (刑法) apply to these crimes as to those of any other law, except where this Act has a special provision.(Art. 2(1), Art. 3(1), Art. 4(1), Art. 5(1), Art. 6, Penal Code Art. 8(1)) (the provisions it rests on)
- Imprisonment () is served in a penal institution, and under the Penal Code (刑法) a fixed term runs from 1 month to 20 years; it can be raised to 30 years when the punishment is aggravated, and when the punishment is reduced (減軽) its maximum and minimum are halved and it can go below 1 month. So the '1 year or more' for causing death under Article 2, and the '6 months or more' of Article 6, go up to 20 years unless the punishment is aggravated, and their minimum is lower when it is reduced.(Art. 2(1), Art. 6(1), Art. 6(2), Penal Code Art. 12(1), Penal Code Art. 12(2), Penal Code Art. 14(2), Penal Code Art. 68(1)(iii)) (the provisions it rests on)
- Where the driver was driving without a licence (無免許運転) when committing the crime, the punishment is heavier: a fixed term of 6 months or more of imprisonment (拘禁刑) for injuring someone under Article 2, except by driving without the skill to control the vehicle; under Article 3, up to 15 years for injury and a fixed term of 6 months or more for death; up to 15 years under Article 4; and up to 10 years' imprisonment under Article 5.(Art. 6(1), Art. 6(2), Art. 6(3), Art. 6(4)) (the provisions it rests on)
- Driving without a licence (無免許運転) means driving a motor vehicle on a road without the licence it requires, including while that licence is suspended, or without carrying the international or foreign driving permit (国際運転免許証, 外国運転免許証) that Article 107-2 of the Road Traffic Act (道路交通法), a separate Act, allows in its place. Driving on such a permit counts as driving without one in the cases Article 88(1)(ii) to (iv) of that Act lists, and once more than one year has passed since the driver landed in Japan.(Art. 1(2)) (the provisions it rests on)
- A landing after less than 3 months abroad does not start that year again for a person recorded in the Basic Resident Register (住民基本台帳) who left Japan with a departure confirmation (出国の確認), which a departing Japanese national receives, a re-entry permit (再入国の許可) or one deemed granted, or a refugee travel document (難民旅行証明書).(Art. 1(2), Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act Art. 60(1)) (the provisions it rests on)
How it connects to other laws
It also names 3 laws not yet held here.
Where the translation comes from
- 11
- 29
The Ministry of Justice's translation is shown only where the Japanese it translates matches the law in force today. Everywhere else the English is a machine translation, marked on the paragraph itself.
Only the Japanese is the law, and no lawyer has reviewed the machine translation.
Sources
Everything this page rests on
- e-Gov (Digital Agency)自動車の運転により人を死傷させる行為等の処罰に関する法律 — the text in force from 2026-07-21Original
- e-Gov (Digital Agency)自動車の運転により人を死傷させる行為等の処罰に関する法律 — revision historyOriginal
- Japanese Law Translation, Ministry of JusticeAct on Punishment of Acts Inflicting Death or Injury on Others by Driving a Motor Vehicle, etc. — Ministry of Justice translationOriginal
- Machine translation, not official
- Written for this site with AIEnglish titles of amending laws, written for this site
- Written for this site with AIDescriptions of each law, written for this site
- Worked out by this site from e-Gov's text