Veronica D’Incà, 38, riding a bicycle, was hit by a truck in February 2023 in Viale Brianza, leaving behind a 6-year-old girl. Cristina Scotia, 39 years old, holistic masseuse and personal trainer, died in the spring of the same year, hit by a concrete mixer on the bicycle path between Via Francesco Sforza and Corso di Porta Vittoria. According to the prosecutor’s office, the two women lost their lives not because of a tragic accident, but because of the alleged negligence of city managers who created irregular and disobedient bicycle lanes. Thus contributing to the dynamics of this fatal accident.
The former Mobility board member, now in charge of Territorial Concern, Marco Granelli, who has long been the symbolic face of the government led by Mayor Giuseppe Sala, risks a double penalty. Granelli signed an ordinance in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, establishing a bicycle lane through Sforza. Also of concern to prosecutors is the final section of the cycle path that crosses Viale Monza and which, also in this case, would be permitted by council members. The Milan prosecutor’s office, yesterday with prosecutor Barbara Benzi and last September 25 with her colleague Mauro Clerici (both from the department headed by deputy Tiziana Siciliano) insisted on a sentence: one year and four months for D’Incà’s death and one year for Scotland’s death. Punishments were also requested in the D’Incà case for the truck driver and manager of Palazzo Marino. And in the case of Scotland, two years and four months for a freight forwarder who may decide to seek a plea bargain.
Judge Alberto Carboni will decide on the trial of the two highway victims on December 17, after the prosecutor’s answer to yesterday’s defense arguments at the trial. In the investigation into Scotland’s death, as prosecutors highlighted, there were no protective barriers separating the car lane from the cycle lane. As stated in the notice of the conclusion of the investigation, near the Sormani Library, the lane on Via Sforza, which was authorized as a trial for one year by the Ministry of Transport, was then accompanied by “signs that do not comply with the provisions of the Highway Code (…) because they conflict” and “might cause confusion among road users” and “increase the danger”.
In essence, the track had been painted on the ground and with supposedly obscure signs at the corners, at the top of the traffic lights. Granelli, along with defender Franco Rossi Galante and the other accused city managers, instead provided a brief report to highlight that the behavior of government representatives was commonplace.
