Those who drive drunk and even kill someone get comparatively lightly in Germany. That should change. Two federal states advocate significantly harsher penalties.
Düsseldorf (dpa) - Interventions in road traffic with a fatal outcome should be punishable by up to ten years imprisonment according to a proposal from North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria.
The envisaged change in the law should take effect, for example, when barricades are set up on streets, wires are stretched or logs are thrown from motorway bridges. This is foreseen by a Federal Council initiative that the Justice Ministers of both countries, Peter Biesenbach (CDU) and Georg Eisenreich (CSU), presented on Thursday.
The draft law should eliminate a contradiction in traffic criminal law, they said in a message. So far, someone who seriously harms another person due to dangerous traffic interference can be punished more severely than someone who thereby negligently kills a victim. This inconsistency should be removed.
The draft law now provides for the same sentence of up to ten years in prison in both cases. So far, paradoxically, this only applies to serious damage to health - on the other hand, death only threatens up to five years. Biesenbach stated that life must have an even higher rank than health.
The Justice Ministers argued how much was still wrong in traffic criminal law in the case of a heavily drunk driver from South Tyrol, who had raced into a group of German ski holidaymakers at the beginning of the year and had killed seven people. While he faces a long prison sentence in Italy, applicable law in Germany only provides a fine or imprisonment of up to five years for drunk trips resulting in death. "That has to change," emphasized Biesenbach.
The federal legislature had already punished participation in prohibited car races in 2017 on the initiative of Bavaria and NRW.