NEWS

Drunk driver cleared of guilt for his death

Despite having been legally too drunk to drive, a motorist who died five years ago after crashing in the dark into a truck which, with its lights off, had suddenly blocked both lanes of a road in northern Greece, was by no means to blame for the accident, a high court has ruled. In a decision made public yesterday, the Supreme Court, Greece’s highest court for criminal and civil cases, found that the truckdriver was exclusively to blame for the crash, and should therefore compensate the dead driver’s relatives – to whom a lower court had awarded 58,690 euros. The court said that although the victim was later found to have been well over the legal blood alcohol limit, this did not affect the outcome of the accident as, even had he been sober, the motorist would have been unable to avoid the truck – which suddenly pulled out from the roadside and made a three-point turn without its side lights on.

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