Nepali Student’s Death at Intersection Spurs Efforts to Educate Foreign Students in Osaka
OSAKA — A Japanese language school in Osaka is trying to ensure foreign students follow traffic rules, after a Nepali student was struck and killed by a car while riding a bicycle through an intersection in Ikuno Ward, Osaka, last year.
In a tragic incident last June, a 22-year-old Nepali student named Mina Pandey was struck and killed by a minivan while cycling through an unmarked intersection in Osaka, Japan. The accident occurred at a narrow residential street crossing a broader single-lane road, with no traffic signals or crosswalks present. The intersection's signage was limited to a Japanese-only "stop" sign.
The head of Mina's Japanese language school, Yoshiteru Tsujimoto, has been working diligently to educate foreign students about traffic rules at the intersection and beyond. With about 70% of the school's approximately 300 students commuting by bicycle, Tsujimoto frequently stops by the intersection to remind cyclists to follow the rules.
The school has taken several steps to prevent similar accidents, including subsidizing bicycle helmets for international students, offering traffic safety lessons in classes, and providing regular safety alerts through Line messaging groups. Additionally, the Ikuno Police Station replaced some signs at the intersection with bilingual English-Japanese signs displaying the word "stop," a practice now phased nationwide.
Despite overall traffic accidents in Osaka Prefecture decreasing, the proportion involving foreign nationals has been rising. In 2025, foreign students and technical intern trainees accounted for 5.1% of 25,056 traffic accidents, up from 3.3% in 2016. The prefectural police offer traffic safety classes on request at schools and companies hosting foreign residents, conducting 282 classes last year for 13,764 foreigners.
Written by urgent.news from The Japan News by The Yomiuri Shimbun's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
