The provincial court of Valladolid sentenced to two and a half years in prison a man who fatally struck three truck drivers on the A-62 motorway, between Valladolid and Tordesillas, on January 18, 2021. The accused risked a triple crime of manslaughter, having hit the victims in the middle of the road, when two of those transporters had stopped to help a third, who had broken down on the motorway. Furthermore, the accused must remain without driving for three years and seven months and banned from professional activity for up to four years and one month. The Prosecutor’s Office requested five years’ imprisonment for him. The man will have to pay more than one million euros in compensation to the three families of the deceased.
The convict was traveling at 7.35 am on January 18, 2021 on the highway aboard a semi-trailer truck, when at kilometer 152,787 he hit the three people, also truck drivers, who were at the scene. One of the victims had parked a heavy vehicle that had suffered a mechanical problem due to the fire in the inner and outer left tire of the second axle of his semi-trailer. It occupied the shoulder and part of the right lane, of the four available, and identified its presence with the four active direction indicators and short-range lighting. In front, two transport companions stopped to try to help their companion.
The sentence describes that the three men were trying to put out the fire caused by the victim’s tires when the accused, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, without paying adequate attention and caution to the road, hit them at a speed of approximately 80 kilometers per hour. “The accident was due to serious imprudence on the part of the accused, caused by his failure to adopt, due to carelessness, the measures that would have allowed him to avoid the damage”, reads the judicial resolution, which highlights that the accused was not handling mobile phones or under the influence of alcohol, but rather was distracted with fatal results.
The driver stated during the trial that he could not see the three people hit, nor the flashing lights of the vehicles nor the trucks themselves. The defense of the person responsible for the death asked for his client’s acquittal for him, arguing that he was not guilty and that he could not see the three victims due to the poor visibility conditions, as well as asking for the mitigation of the delay in the trial, since there were up to three suspensions before it was held at the provincial court of Valladolid and this sentence was issued.
