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Italian truck victim was 'too short to be seen'

Sophie Inge
Sophie Inge - [email protected]
Italian truck victim was 'too short to be seen'
This is not the truck driver in the story. Truck driver photo: Shutterstock"

A truck driver who knocked over and killed a woman as she walked along a pavement is only partly responsible for her death because the woman was too short to be a seen, according to the driver’s insurance company.

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Gabriella Serangeli, 65, was knocked over by a truck on the morning of March 15th last year as it came out of a supermarket car park in Cesano, north west of Rome, Corriere della Sera reported.

Despite the cries of horrified passers-by, the driver Marco De Paolis did not stop the vehicle in time and the woman died from her injuries.

According to the company that the vehicle was insured under, it was not possible for the driver to see the woman because she measured just 1m 50cm, shorter than the height of the vehicle.

"[The]cause of the accident is the imprudence of the woman, who was in a position, in front of the truck, which made it impossible [for the driver] to see her, as she was lower than the vehicle".

As a result both the woman and the driver were judged responsible for the accident, meaning that the woman’s family were entitled to just half the compensation.

But according to a legal advisor at the public prosecutor’s office Clara De Cecilia, the driver did not see the victim because they did not look to the right before moving the truck.

“The pedestrian can’t be blamed because she was walking correctly on the pavement and because she had been doing so for several minutes, as is normal, thinking she had been seen,” she said.

The prosecutor has now obtained an indictment against the truck driver for manslaughter.
 

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