Contractor guilty over road death
Greece’s highest criminal and civil court has upheld the manslaughter conviction of a public works contractor over the death of a motorist at night on a poorly signposted highway deviation, court sources said yesterday. The Supreme Court agreed with an appeals court decision that imposed a 19-month prison sentence – suspended for three years – on the contractor who was responsible for the roadwork at the site of the accident. The contractor’s identity and the place where the fatal crash, in which two vehicles met head-on, took place were not made public. The court ruled that the contractor should have installed warning lights 500 meters before the deviation to provide adequate warning for drivers at night. The decision also stressed that the defendant ought to have erased the double white line in the middle of the road where the deviation started, as any motorist following the line would run the risk of hitting an oncoming vehicle. The Supreme Court ruled that the contractor had not done enough by installing a warning signpost 300 meters before the deviation.
