尋ねる and 問う: Information and responsibility
Compare asking where a station is or what a story means with holding someone accountable for an accident. Preserve the overlap in asking and distinguish a plan to ask from a completed response.
Asking for information
尋ねる means to ask or inquire. The station example reports a lost person asking a nearby clerk for information about its location.
「分からない点は、授業の後で先生に尋ねることにした。」 (I decided to ask the teacher after class about what I did not understand.) A decision was made to ask the teacher after class. Deciding to ask does not report that the question was already asked and answered.
Asking about meaning or responsibility
問う can also mean to ask. A teacher asking a student about a story's meaning is an information-seeking use, distinct from the responsibility example.
「事故を防げなかった責任を厳しく問う。」 (They will strictly hold those responsible for failing to prevent the accident accountable.) The matter raised is responsibility for failing to prevent the accident. The nonpast Japanese statement does not establish a completed judgment, punishment, or identification of a responsible party.
The object and stage of the action matter
Asking for a station's location and asking about a story's meaning overlap as inquiries. The examples do not impose a student-only or teacher-only restriction on the verbs.
Inspect the information sought or the responsibility being questioned. Do not define every 問う as blame or legal punishment, or turn a decision to ask into completed inquiry.
How do asking for a station's location or a story's meaning and 責任を問う differ in what is being asked?
Show the answer and why
The first examples request information about location or meaning. The responsibility example strictly questions responsibility for failing to prevent the accident. 問う can also seek information, and its responsibility use does not itself report a completed judgment or punishment.