Can the configuration of an urban crossroads be retained by the courts in a fatal bicycle accident?
This is one of the questions asked to the investigating judge charged since Monday April 26 to investigate the death of a cyclist in Grenoble in March.
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The Grenoble prosecutor's office announced on Tuesday the opening of a judicial investigation following a complaint for manslaughter filed by the victim's husband. On the morning of March 25, a 38-year-old school teacher who was riding a bicycle was killed at the crossroads of two main avenues in the city, run over by a dump truck. This violent accident, in which the victim died before the arrival of help, had moved in Grenoble, where cycling associations had asked the Metropolis to redevelop this "
particularly dangerous
" crossroads
.
"
Every cyclist who has taken this crossing knows the danger, the only fault of the cyclist killed was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,
" the associations wrote in a press release.
A few days later, the victim's husband lodged a complaint against X for manslaughter, as announced by the regional daily Le Dauphiné Libéré. The public prosecutor seized Monday an investigating judge "
so that a thorough investigation is carried out
" for, on the one hand, manslaughter by the driver of the dump truck, and on the other hand for "
manslaughter by clearly deliberate violation of 'an obligation of prudence or security provided for by law or regulation by legal person and by natural person against X
”. "
This last ground of investigation will allow the investigating magistrate to take into consideration the request for expertise of Me Gerbi for the civil party on the accident-causing nature of the place of the accident and the measures taken in this regard
”, writes the prosecutor of Grenoble Eric Vaillant in a press release.
The lawyer of the victim's husband, Me Hervé Gerbi, explained last week to AFP that he had referred the prosecutor "
to a request for an expertise in urban planning
", specifying that he was not aware of another similar procedure concerning a fatal bicycle accident in France.
The prosecutor's decision is "
satisfaction for the family, which expects individual and collective responses from this death in terms of responsibility,
" he reacted on Tuesday. If he is not aware of the precise circumstances of the accident - he does not yet have access to the file - the lawyer also underlines the "
personal responsibility
" of the driver and says he is "
certain
" to see a "
breach. to the highway code
”on his part.