By Karin Hendrich
The tragic traffic accident on May 27, 2021 in Frankfurter Allee (Friedrichshain) had two victims: the dead cyclist Laëtitia G. (37). And truck driver Peter Z. (name changed, 58) from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Since then he has been unable to work and is undergoing psychiatric treatment.
More than two years after the tragic event, he sat before the traffic judge on Thursday on charges of negligent homicide. Wordless. Taken. The prosecution blames him.
That day, Peter Z. was driving his tractor-trailer (17 meters long, 25 tons load) into the city. On the median strip. At 30 km/h. Laëtitia G. (translator and editor of the comic magazine “Beton”) was driving in the same direction. First on the cycle path (on the sidewalk), which turned onto the newly installed pop-up cycle path after Voigtstrasse.
But at the Samariterstrasse subway exit, a money transporter suddenly blocked her path. She swerved to the left. Lightning fast. With a speed of 23/24. Without looking.
Truck driver Peter Z. (58) has been receiving psychiatric treatment since the tragic accident Photo: Olaf Wagner
The video recorded by the truck’s dash cam shows her in her yellow jacket, getting between the van and the tractor, stumbling, and suddenly disappearing from the picture. Then the shocked defendant, who came to a stop a few meters away, said: “I can’t… She just ran under me. She was just next to me…”
And then? Peter Z. turns away from the video. Fights for control. The expert: “He couldn’t tell where she’s going now?” When he heard her scream, he braked. Too late, the wheels of the truck trailer rolled over them. Even a helmet, which she wasn’t wearing, couldn’t have saved her.
The expert: “The cyclist should have slowed down, stopped completely or swerved to the right in time.”
Judge Karsten Parpart acquits Peter Z. “The cyclist entered the pop-up cycle path at an undiminished speed. Her only reaction: the scream.” And the defendant responded to that by slowing down. The young woman acted in a “gross traffic violation”.
Hard to bear for the friends of the dead in the audience. It was certainly even more difficult for the mother in France, who didn’t even have the strength to come to the trial as a co-plaintiff.
And the cash-in-transit truck that caused the terrible accident? The judge: “The fact that he was standing there was an outrage.” The driver had no special permission to stop. It will probably still go unpunished.