Le Figaro Nice
The image of a bus overturned after falling a few meters on the Provence railway line, in Levens, near Nice, still haunts the minds and in particular those of the Maralpin gendarmes.
To avoid another similar tragedy, they decided to intensify checks in the department, because the driver, at the time of this impressive accident, was under the influence of narcotics (cannabis and cocaine).
Two teenagers aged 15 and 16 who were inside were seriously injured and the driver has since been charged.
Control operations have increased in recent weeks under the orders of Colonel Sébastien Thomas.
The gendarmes targeted
“the valley sector where traffic is high in winter near the stations”
, they explained on their X account. This strategy proved relevant even if the results may worry more than one person. .
Just ten days after the Levens accident, two new bus drivers tested positive for drugs, they indicated on the same social network.
In the Isola 2000 station, and while transporting around forty passengers on behalf of a private company, a 34-year-old driver tested positive for cannabis.
He was taken into custody and then referred.
Also read: On the roads of the Côte d’Azur, a deadly summer and a “cataclysmic” August
Systematic unshoeing
The next day, another driver also tested positive for “THC”, the main molecule of cannabis.
“I want a firm response”
, underlined the Nice prosecutor, Damien Martinelli, in the regional daily
Nice-Matin
.
He thus announced a systematic dismissal for this type of case, while welcoming
the “excellent initiative”
of the gendarmes.
The first driver was placed under judicial supervision without being able to practice his profession and will be judged on May 2, the prosecution said.
The second accepted a procedure to plead guilty and was sentenced to six months suspended prison sentence and six months of license suspension, added the prosecutor.
Operations to control bus drivers must continue until the spring with the support of other gendarmerie units, including the departmental road safety squadron.