Penalties should be reduced
Buschmann: Thanks to digitization, fewer accident escapes
08/12/2023 11:48 am
Courts are overwhelmed, technical options are available: in the future, car accidents without personal injury could do without waiting for the police and save those involved work. The process would then be an administrative offense and no longer a criminal offence. This is how Minister of Justice Buschmann plans.
Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann has defended his proposal to reduce hit-and-run accidents from a criminal offense to an administrative offense in cases where there is no personal injury. “We are considering the possibility of introducing digital reports with photos of the damage and proper identification to an official body,” Buschmann told the newspapers of the Bayern media group. “Then it is clear who was involved in the accident and at the same time the effort for the police and the individual can be reduced.”
In addition, the effort for the public prosecutor’s offices and courts to deal with criminal proceedings about accident escapes should be reduced. The minister has no worries that people could abuse the change. Nobody should simply leave the field, but it would be a matter of recording the damage in a modern way.
According to the current legal situation, the person who caused an accident must wait until the police or the other party involved in the accident arrives at the scene of the accident. Anyone who leaves without permission commits a criminal offence. This can be punished with a fine or imprisonment of up to three years. Administrative offenses, on the other hand, are subject to a fine. In order to streamline criminal law, the Ministry of Justice is currently reviewing criminal offenses so that they may only be punished as administrative offences.