Rheintal: 29-year-old in court

A driver had to answer in district court for a serious accident that he had caused stoned.

—

Parts of the silver-colored Vespa flew meters through the air after the accident. That was in July 2019 on Rietstrasse in Balgach. The Vespa driver, then 81 years old, was seriously injured. Now the driver, a 29-year-old from the Middle Rhine Valley, was on trial in Altstätten.

The public prosecutor accused him of negligent, serious bodily harm and a gross violation of traffic rules. He was unable to drive. A THC level of 2.8 micrograms/l was found in his blood, almost twice the legal limit. The consumption of marijuana can be proven with the THC value. The accident victim has since withdrawn his civil suit.

Memories of the day of the accident are sketchy

“My thoughts were elsewhere,” said the accused to the judge, who asked him about the accident. His lawyer supported him legally, his father supported him morally.

What was the traffic like? Like the weather on the day of the accident. Was the indicator on the vehicle in front set? The 29-year-old, a logistician, said he couldn’t remember. During the questioning, his legs were almost constantly bouncing nervously, whether he was crossing them under the seat or stretching them out.

On the day of the accident, he was driving along Rietstrasse in Balgach in the direction of Diepoldsau around midday. He noticed too late that a vehicle in front braked to turn. In an effort to avoid a rear-end collision, the man swerved to the left and collided with the oncoming 81-year-old Vespa driver. Finally, he rammed another sign on the side of the road.

Both the Vespa driver and the person who caused the accident were traveling at around the permitted 80 km/h. That’s what the police found out. The accused stated that he only noticed the Vespa driver at the moment of the collision. He got out of the car and went to the injured man who was lying on the ground.

“When I saw the foot, it was done,” he remembers, then the shock set in for him. Someone called the ambulance. According to the indictment, the victim suffered “various serious internal and external injuries”. The most serious was an open fracture on the right lower leg, which resulted in a vascular injury, so that the lower leg had to be amputated.

According to the indictment, there was a concrete danger to life. In addition, the 81-year-old, who was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, suffered from bleeding in the temple area, lacerations and contusions in the mouth area and on the right forearm, a rupture of the pubic symphysis and the sacrum joint and several fractures of the metatarsal bones on the right foot.

Prosecutor demands twelve months conditionally

The public prosecutor, who did not appear in court, demanded a conditional prison sentence of twelve months in the indictment, a fine of 3,200 francs and the assumption of the procedural and investigation costs (almost 8,000 francs).

“If I could, I would turn back time.” The defendant referred to this phrase more than once. On the one hand, he must have thought of the 83-year-old accident victim. Possibly also of his own life, in which evening joints with colleagues have had a permanent place since he was 14 years old. That’s the end of it: “I don’t take anything anymore”.

He smoked the last joint the evening before the accident. After the accident, the 29-year-old had to see his family doctor regularly for a year to check his abstinence.

His client behaved “exemplarily and cooperatively” and confessed from the start, said the defense attorney. The required prison sentence was “in any case too high” to drop the allegation of serious bodily harm.

Court remains under impeachment demands

With eight months imprisonment conditional on a probationary period of two years, the court did not meet the sentence demanded by the public prosecutor. The fine was reduced to CHF 1,300. The accused has to pay the procedural costs of around 5,500 francs.

–