Driver sues over road rockfall
A driver whose car was badly damaged by a boulder during a rockslide on a major highway in the Peloponnese is seeking 2,600 euros in damages from the State, claiming road maintenance officials had shown negligence in not taking precautions against such an accident. Nikos Sakellariou was driving in the slow lane on the national road from Corinth to the central Peloponnesian town of Tripolis, just before the Artemision tunnel, when stones and boulders started tumbling down the hillside onto the road. The car ran over a boulder and sustained serious damage. In his action before an Athens court, Sakellariou argues that much of the hillside near the Artemision tunnel has been covered with a metal net against landslides. But at the point of the accident, 136 kilometers south of Athens, no such protective measures had been taken. The damages sought are to cover the cost of repairs to the car, to compensate for the reduction in the vehicle’s re-sale value, and for «moral damage.»
