Truck driver complained of illness before fatal bus crash in Hokkaido

police suspect that the truck strayed into oncoming traffic, 

No "suspect" about it, video evidence from a following vehicle clearly showed the truck crossing into the opposite lane and causing the accident.

From what I hear the trucking industry here is now scraping the bottom of the barrel for drivers. People have no interest in doing it. I’ve been told the industry is putting pressure on the government to allow special visas for foreign drivers.

Pay a respectable wage, set sensible hours and people will join the industry

@yokohamarides - you heard it right mate

one main reason why this is happening is the changes they made in acquiring the large truck drivers' licence

in the old days you can jump straight from a regular licence to large truck license

but nowadays you need to have at least 3 years of tenure (and i think you have to be at least 21 years old) before you can try for the large truck licence

with that, we don't see any young people coming out of high school aiming for this kind of job anymore

also, in the old days (before 2007), people with regular drivers's licence can drive up to (gross weight) 8-ton vehicles just by achieving a certain amount of tenure.

hence, this profession become a less popular option

that's why post retirement aged drivers are still in demand

The company "SAID" he was not over worked. The company "SAID" Kajiya had shown no "abnormalities" in his health. What did Kajiya complain for? What did the doctors say? What did the investigators conclude? But the COMPANY SAID!!!

A day after the collision, Nippon Clean Farm Ltd, a pig farming company that owns the truck, told reporters that records about the 65-year-old truck driver Makoto Kajiya over the last three months showed he was not overworked.

The company also said Kajiya had shown no "abnormalities" in his health.

Japanese generally go to work even if feeling sick,as they are likely to receive pressure over unscheduled absences.

Increasingly, time off work means less pay for many.

Driving large vehicles without being 100% is putting lives at risk

However, I’d expect stories like this to increase in the future.

The company "SAID" he was not over worked. The company "SAID" Kajiya had shown no "abnormalities" in his health. What did Kajiya complain for? What did the doctors say? What did the investigators conclude? But the COMPANY SAID!!!

Wow, where to begin. I drove gasoline tank trucks to pay for grad school. There was no sick leave. We didn't have paid holidays or paid vacation either. You worked or you went hungry. So I went to work sick more times than I care to think about. I didn't see a doctor because I couldn't afford to most of the time. Even with,cough cough, "health insurance" the out of pocket before the deductibles were were satisfied were on the order of $2,000. I got fired from one employer because a broken shoulder (motorcycle crash on way to work, ouch) didn't heal in six weeks and I couldn't drive with a broken shoulder very well. I did go back to driving six days after an orthoscopic knee surgery (torn meniscus from jogging) at another employer. It's just how it is in that industry. I was even threatened with termination when my mom died and I took a week off, even after telling them for a week that she was on her death bed and when she passed I would need some time off. I told the sob dispatcher to go ahead and fire me, job ain't worth it. They didn't but I can still hear that dispatcher whining "who's going to deliver my loads?" Wah!

This article has absolutely nothing to do with you driving truck in a different country and you weren't even transporting livestock.

No, it is about a driver going to work feeling sick and some of the people here acting shocked like it should never happen.

Guess what? In the real world real people go to work sick for reasons like those I described. If you want drivers to work shorter hours, have sick days off and have health insurance with less than insane deductibles so they actually go to see a doctor when they are sick then be prepared to pay a buttload more for everything that moves by truck. Not saying those things shouldn't happen but this shock some here express, feigned or real, is not informed by the kinds of lives most truck drivers live.