Two people, a man and a woman, appear on trial for manslaughter after a terrible accident dating back to January 16, 2017. While driving on the A6 motorway, near Beaune and the five-lane crossing, Nicolas J., 39 years old, resident of Talant in the Dijon metropolis, was hit head-on by a tire and died instantly. The wheel has just been lost by a logging truck, which was transporting tree trunks and which was traveling in the other direction, which left Haute-Saône in the morning and was due to reach Allier. The tire crossed the tracks and the central reservation, causing one death and two injuries.
After seven and a half years of investigation, the hearing took place on Monday October 7, 2024 before the Dijon criminal court. The driver and the company manager are on trial. Two big questions are at the heart of the trial: how could this tire come loose? And above all, whose fault is it?
“Negligence, carelessness, and rare dilettantism!”
The expert reports prove it, even if they create long technical debates: the nuts were unscrewed at the fifth axle of the truck, and the tire came off. Or rather the tires, since a second also left the equipment, but with less damage, ending its race behind a fence.
How is this possible? Has the strength of the screwing of the nuts been sufficiently checked? Why was the truck overloaded, with nine tons of wood in excess of regulations? And with a load exceeding the regulatory length? Why was this heavy goods vehicle, acquired only a few months earlier by the company, running with a mechanical problem (a locking problem) which had not been detected until then?
For the prosecutor, the causes of the accident can be summed up in three words: “Negligence, carelessness, and rare dilettantism!”. For his part, the lawyer for the company and its president questions the nature of the causes of the accident. While it is possible to understand what can cause a tire to come loose, it is difficult to know precisely what caused this particular loosening. “We are certain that nothing is certain”he summarizes.
Who is responsible?
What is difficult in this matter is that responsibility will flow from the cause. Whose fault is it? The driver? This big guy, taciturn, bust straight to the bar, father of three children, 25 years in the profession? And who is blamed for not having done all the security checks? “I respected what my employer asked of me,” he says. His lawyer defends: “He carried out the checks to the best of his ability, with the means at his disposal”. “If you had done your job, sir, there would have been no accident” retorts the prosecutor. “Seven years since this tire came unscrewed, seven years since I asked myself questions”regrets the driver, who specifies having “had to find a psychiatrist” . Today, he still drives heavy goods vehicles, but no longer in the timber sector. He resigned from this company.
“And it’s your responsibility too.” This time, the prosecutor is targeting the manager of this company, recognized in the sector and based in the Vosges, who employed the driver and owned the truck. “No training for drivers, while we pride ourselves on being the high priestess of transport safety?”. Indeed, the person who founded this company in 1990 has worked hard to change the standards and rules in the wood transport sector. “Ready to do anything to save her skin and her reputation in the world of transport”denounces one of the lawyers of the civil parties, while her colleague mentions “an accumulation of negligence”. The entrepreneur’s advice once again reminds us that in terms of the causes of the accident, “nothing is certain but hypothetical”.
So was there a breach on the part of the employer? If yes, at what stage? In the information? In training? In the provision of tools and equipment? Or should the fault only be placed on the driver, who must inspect and check his truck daily? While the two camps pass the responsibilities to each other, the tears of the victim’s family members – who came in large numbers to the hearing – continue to flow abundantly, seven and a half years after the tragedy. “What shocks me the most is that they are absolving themselves of their responsibilities”. Dignified, the father of Nicolas J. speaks, describing the after-effects that are still present in his grandchildren. “The years have erased nothing, nothing faded. Our family asks you for justice”he told the court.
The prosecution requests a one-year suspended prison sentence, and a large fine for the company
At the end of the hearing, the truck driver and the manager of the transport company turn towards the family for the first time. In tears, facing the victim’s two children, now aged 9 and 12, they apologize.
For the truck driver, the prosecution requires a one-year suspended prison sentence, and a three-year suspension of the driving license. For the founding president of the company that hired her: one year suspended prison sentence, 32,000 euros fine. And also nearly 35,000 euros fine for his company, judged as a legal entity. For the two defendants, the lawyers are requesting release. The judgment is reserved and the decision will be rendered on December 2, 2024.
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