Elderly driver at fault in infant's road death spared punishment

An elderly driver who struck a young mother and her baby in Tartu last year, killing the child, has been declared exempt from any penalty due to suffering from dementia, regional daily Tartu Postimees reports.
Following the tragedy last May, the Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) found reason to believe the individual at fault was not mentally sound, which, the prosecutor's office says, means no penalty will be issued because: "In criminal law theory, we can only impose punishment when a person commits an act intentionally and comprehends that this act can have severe consequences."
The PPA initiated a criminal investigation against the driver responsible for the accident, but the prosecutor's office will not file charges, primarily due to their mental capacity to be criminally responsible at the time of the collision, in the opinion of medical experts, the Prosecutor Kairi Kaldoja of the Southern District Prosecutor's Office told Tartu Postimees.
The tragedy happened near the Salvest factory at Aruküla tee 3 in Tartu on May 3 last year, when an 83-year-old man driving a Volvo passenger vehicle traveling at an estimated 80 kilometers per hour struck a 26-year-old mother and her eight-month-old son, while they were using a designated crosswalk.
The child later died in the hospital from injuries sustained, while the mother herself is still recovering from serious injuries; the driver at fault held a valid health certificate issued by a family doctor shortly before the tragedy, and held a full and valid driver's license.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte