You can hardly remember that a few weeks ago you were annoyed by another road user who flashed the headlights and gestured wildly, although nothing really happened.
And now a letter from the police flutters into your house asking you to express yourself as a suspect, since the initial suspicion of coercion in traffic exists!
How should one deal with such a letter?
Off to the trash, because you haven’t done anything bad after all?
This may not be a good idea, because then the next piece of paper you get out of the mailbox on this matter could be a penalty warrant that fines you and gets your driver’s license disqualified.
Or better to defend yourself and tell the police how you experienced the situation, as far as you can still remember it?
This, too, can cause problems: After all, as a suspect, you don’t know exactly which allegations the criminal complainant has made and it may not even be clear who made the complaint and which incident the whole thing actually concerns.
The only correct way leads to a specialist lawyer for traffic law or for criminal law: Only a lawyer can request access to the files, so that only then can you get clarity about the exact facts.
Then you can calmly discuss with the criminal defense lawyer mandated by you whether you want to make a statement and what it should look like.
Under certain circumstances, it can be entirely sufficient for the lawyer to argue purely legally and to point out that the accusation of coercion has not been fulfilled after the criminal complainant has presented it.
This is more often the case than a legal layperson thinks, because the criminal offense of coercion is structured quite complex and many facts that are commonly regarded as “coercion” fulfill this criminal offense by far by using the case law of the higher courts Not.
Hence my recommendation in the event that you are exposed to the accusation of coercion in traffic: Keep calm and ask a specialist lawyer for traffic law or criminal law to deal with the matter as early as possible.
You then coordinate everything else with him without taking any thoughtless steps that could prove to be problematic in the further course of the procedure.
And another tip for everyone who regularly drives a vehicle on the road: It definitely makes sense to take out legal protection insurance for traffic.
This is quite inexpensive and it provides coverage in traffic criminal cases. The legal fees for the defense attorney are therefore covered by the legal protection insurance, unless the procedure actually ends with a conviction for willful coercion.
An experienced defense attorney will very often know how to prevent this from happening in the event of an accusation of coercion: For example, experienced specialist lawyers often succeed in hiring according to § 153 StPO because of minor guilt or according to § 153a StPO against payment of a monetary condition, especially with the accusation of coercion in road traffic.
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