She was only 3 years old and her life was cut short seven days before Christmas.
While she was walking with her grandmother, a young girl passed under the wheel of a bus which was operating a maneuver in the late afternoon in Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis).
The driver would not have seen the child who was in his blind spot.
This tragedy, which occurred three weeks ago, is the fear of all truck drivers like Anthony, Alcino or Rassavong.
All three were gathered Wednesday morning on the forecourt of the Arab World Institute in Paris around a bus and a mixer truck responsible for delivering concrete.
These three drivers know better than anyone that it is almost impossible when you are perched high at the wheel of a 20 t monster to visualize a pedestrian, a cyclist, a scooter or a scooter if they find themselves in the road. blind spot of the vehicle.
Hence the decision of road safety to impose from this Wednesday on heavy vehicles over 3.5 t to stick stickers on the back and on each side of the vehicle.
10% of fatal pedestrian accidents and 8% of cyclist deaths are due to a blind spot./LP/Olivier Arandel
The objective is to warn the “vulnerable users” who pass by the buses or the trucks that they can find themselves in an area almost “invisible” to the eye of the driver from his cabin even when he scrutinizes his mirrors.
"10% of fatal pedestrian accidents and 8% of cyclist deaths are due to a blind spot," recalls the interministerial delegate for road safety Marie Gautier-Melleray.
To measure how deadly these “blind spots” are, we are invited to take the place of one of the bus drivers.
Once seated behind the wheel, we adjust the huge mirrors with a dial just as easily as in a car to have the best rear view.
But that's without counting the twelve meters long of the machine.
When a bicycle tumbles to our right in the famous “blind spot”, it is impossible to see it.
"Cyclists can come from the left or from the right so you have to be 200% focused, anticipate as much as possible and spend your time looking to the right of the bus and then to the left," explains Rassavong Chanthalima, a machinist for fourteen years.
VIDEO. Girl mown by a truck at 11: why there will be more deaths
Anthony is more used to driving 32 t concrete mixers.
He remembers his "big fright" when a bike going straight ahead found itself in the danger zone while it was turning right.
"I had the instinct to watch and I pounded at the last moment, thus avoiding running over him," said the young driver.
He is also fortunate in his truck to have four cameras that offer him a 360 ° C view at the front, rear and sides.
Scooters that have no notion of danger
But technology has its limits.
Trainer with the transport company Tratel, Alcino Pereira believes that drivers are entitled to “scares” almost daily, especially when they travel in the Paris region.
“Between the scooters that do anything, burn the lights and cut us off and the two wheels brushing against us on the right or on the left, people have no idea of the danger at all, sighs the driver.
However, they should realize that when you find yourself under a 32 t heavyweight, you stay there.
"
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"Whatever the degree of attention of a truck driver and even if he has a camera, he has only two eyes and it is difficult for him to visualize all the blind spots around his vehicle at the same time" , insists Marie Gautier-Melleray.
To warn users that they find themselves in a danger zone, a European regulation will require from 2024 all new heavy goods vehicles to have a radar coupled to an audible warning device.