Anyone who drives drunk and causes a serious accident should be able to lose their vehicle in the future. This is what the traffic court recommended, as was announced at the final press conference in Goslar. This year, over 1,700 experts spoke in eight working groups on topics related to traffic law and traffic safety. It ended on Friday.
After a criminal offense while driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, the vehicle should be confiscated both in cases of intent and negligence. The driver must then hand over his vehicle to the state forever. Driving under the influence of alcohol can be a crime with a level as low as 0.3 per mille, for example if there is an accident or the driver is impaired. The regulation should apply to all vehicles, including bicycles or scooters, and also to vehicles that do not belong to the perpetrator. The prerequisite is that the driver has already been convicted of a similar offense in the past five years.
Associations such as the Auto Club Europa, the Automobile Club Verkehr and the German Road Safety Council welcomed the decisions.
Stricter penalties for points trading demanded
Until now, drivers have sometimes been able to avoid receiving points for traffic offenses due to a loophole in the law. So far it has been possible to take on the points of another person – without penalty, depending on the legal interpretation. Some companies from other EU countries also offer this online for a fee. The traffic court day is therefore calling for better penalties against the actual drivers and the companies that offer so-called points trading. Among other things, it should be possible to issue driving bans to people who use such offers. Internet offerings for points trading should also be banned.
Regardless of this, traffic offenses should continue to be prosecuted. To achieve this, among other things, fine authorities would have to get more staff, demanded the traffic court day. In addition, the statute of limitations for traffic offenses should be extended from three to six months.
Hit and run: make it easier to report accidents
In the debate about reforming hit and run accidents, the traffic court spoke out against downgrading the crime to a misdemeanor. However, reporting an accident should be better regulated, for example by setting up a neutral, digital reporting point. It should also be possible to report an accident without penalty up to 24 hours after it happened. In addition, a minimum waiting time should be set that the person who caused the accident should ideally adhere to. The waiting time shouldn’t be too long, said criminal law professor Jan Zops, who led the working group. In addition, it was recommended that hit-and-runs should no longer be automatically punished with the revocation of the driver’s license in the future – as long as only property damage was caused.
More information about liability when traveling
According to the traffic court, anyone who uses multiple means of transport, such as trains and planes, should be better informed about their rights. This should be made particularly clear to travelers before they book, for example with pictograms. Specifically, the topic of liability for delays and missed connections was discussed. It was recommended to standardize passenger rights and to regulate more clearly who is liable in case of doubt. According to the traffic court day, compensation payments should be based on the ticket price. They should also be paid if the destination was reached with a long delay – not just for canceled trips.
In the event of accident damage, settle more out of court
Most experts talked about accident damage at the traffic court day. Specifically, it was about dealing with previous damage when settling claims. After an accident, if the accident victim obtains a damage report, the car must be examined for previous damage. If the insurer who is supposed to pay the damage has information about previous damage from its files, it should inform the accident victim before a court hearing. In some cases, the car owners themselves do not know anything about previous damage, for example if they were not informed about it when buying a used car, explained federal judge Vera von Pentz, who headed the relevant working group.
