Driving too fast and drunk at the wheel: A 26-year-old driver killed a passer-by on a protective path in Dornbirn. Now the trial was at the Feldkirch regional court.
The defendant was sentenced on Thursday to a partial prison sentence of 15 months for gross negligent homicide. On the evening of October 20th, the previously innocent man got behind the wheel of his high-horsepower sports car while drunk and hit the tube – despite poor visibility and weather conditions. At the level of the Haselstauden elementary school, he finally hit a 76-year-old pedestrian on the protective path at far too high speed. The impact threw the woman against the windshield and then catapulted ten meters over the roof of the car before she remained motionless on the asphalt. Despite immediate rescue efforts, the pensioner succumbed to her serious head injuries on the way to the hospital. The 26-year-old fatal driver now has to live with the burden of having extinguished a human life due to his own carelessness. Not only that he is now undergoing psychotherapy and has written a long letter to the bereaved to deal with it. Much sadder is the defendant’s late realization in the trial: “I wouldn’t have had to rely on a car at all. But I still felt able to drive.” He also said he wasn’t distracted while driving. “I simply didn’t see the woman.” Motor vehicle expert Christian Wolf comes to the conclusion in his traffic report that the driver involved in the accident must have been driving at a speed of between 59 and 62 km/h a few seconds before the impact and only after the collision had applied emergency braking. “If he had been driving at a maximum of 40 km/h, he would not have hit the pedestrian in the first place.” The verdict – which is not yet legally binding – in detail: 15 months in prison, ten of which, however, are suspended. He awards the survivors a total of 400 euros.
source site-12