Not loss of consciousness, but deliberate acceleration? What is known about major road accident in Kyiv in which four people died
The parents of 12-year-old Hryhorii-Fedor Hlushych, who died in a horrific accident in the Solomianskyi District of the capital, have submitted a second petition to the Office of the President calling for a comprehensive reform plan to reduce traffic fatalities.
Meanwhile, the family’s lawyer is using social media to appeal to anyone who witnessed what happened on 5 June and the events leading up to it to come forward. It is important to establish why the driver – who, according to law enforcement, had previously been involved in several accidents and had been prosecuted for speeding – was driving in such a way that the car crashed through the crash barrier and into the underpass, claiming the lives of four people. After all, the driver himself claims that he allegedly lost consciousness and cannot explain anything, whilst the female passenger who was in the car refutes this. According to her, the man was accelerating, racing, ignoring requests to stop it, and was distracted by his mobile phone whilst driving.
FATAL CRASH IN SOLOMIANKA
It is recalled that the driver of a Mercedes-Benz lost control of the vehicle whilst travelling at high speed and crashed into an underpass where people were present. Two police officers, a woman and a 12-year-old boy were killed at the scene. Three other people were injured.
Rescue workers extracted the driver from the car and took him to hospital. Under the procedural supervision of the Kyiv City Prosecutor’s Office, a pre-trial investigation has been launched into the fatal road traffic accident under Part 3 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The court has imposed a preventive measure on him – 60 days’ detention without alternative.
It has also emerged that he has been brought to administrative liability on multiple occasions for speeding and, according to the Office of the Prosecutor General, he has been involved in four road traffic accidents.
Speaking to Nadiia Chukhraieva, the lawyer for the Hlushych family, a few days after the court hearing at which the driver’s pre-trial measure was determined, I asked whether there was any new information that might shed light on why the accident occurred. This is because, when commenting on the tragic events to journalists, the suspect’s lawyer emphasised that his client did not, on the whole, deny his guilt, but had not told him anything about the circumstances of the accident at that point. The defence lawyer therefore speculated that the car had become uncontrollable for reasons unknown to him.
"As far as I know, the driver has not yet given a statement," lawyer Nadiia Chukhraieva told "Censor". "There is a statement from the victim, who was travelling with him in the car, and she says that he did not lose consciousness.
How do I view the situation? Murder can be committed with direct intent, or it may not be. For example, if you live on the ground floor, pick up a gun and start shooting out of your flat’s window, you aren’t aiming at anyone in particular, but you are aware that a bullet could injure or kill someone. It’s the same here. A person, being aware of how they are moving and having a certain background to that movement, must realise that they could kill either themselves or someone else.
We have now announced that we are seeking information about the reasons behind what happened. We don’t know what was going on with him on the day of the accident, or what had happened the day before."
On the day we spoke to Nadiia, a passenger in the taxi described what had happened in the car in a comment to TSN. "We’d only been driving for a few minutes when he started to accelerate. I don’t know why he was driving in a zigzag pattern, overtaking and swerving like that, just like in cartoons or racing games," said Yulia Volkovska.
She also noted that during the journey she was busy on her phone and didn’t even realise straight away that the car was travelling at breakneck speed.
"I didn’t react because I had to answer a call whilst driving. I lowered my head. Someone rang him too. He took his phone off the dashboard. I don’t remember putting it there anymore. So he was answering the call. And then I noticed that the mirror on my side had flown off. I said: ‘What on earth are you doing? Stop!’ He didn’t pay any attention to me," the woman explained.
She emphasised that the driver hadn’t lost consciousness but was still holding the steering wheel.
"I don’t know what must have been going through that man’s mind for him to behave like that. A female passenger told him to stop so she could get out, but he just kept speeding up. What can you say when someone deliberately speeds up in the city? And when he clipped the ‘Bogdan’ bus, the right-hand wing mirror came off his car, yet he still didn’t stop and carried on accelerating. Perhaps the man decided to take his own life in this way, or perhaps he decided to ‘play’ at being God…", says Nadiia Chukhraieva.
EXPERTS TO INVESTIGATE THE CAR’S SAFETY SYSTEMS
Law enforcement officers are currently unable to say what caused the driver’s behaviour and led to such consequences, as the investigations are still ongoing. As Anatolii Androsovych, head of the Transport Crimes Investigation Department at the Investigative Directorate of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Kyiv, told "Censor.NET", three expert examinations have been commissioned: a forensic automotive examination of the technical condition of the Mercedes; a forensic engineering and transport examination to analyse the Mercedes’ safety system control module, which may reveal the sequence of the driver’s actions whilst driving prior to the accident; and a forensic photographic examination to determine the speed of the Mercedes.
I asked him how realistic it was to establish anything, given that the car had been almost completely wrecked. "There is a module in the car that records all the information: the vehicle’s speed, acceleration, braking system performance, directional stability, left and right steering wheel movements, the steering system, and whether the tyres were properly inflated," he says. "The experts are checking the car’s operating systems. Everything will be recorded on the module."
According to him, footage from the ‘Safe City’ surveillance cameras and from one of the kiosks located near the scene of the accident has been seized and is also being analysed by experts. Law enforcement officers are also searching for the driver of the vehicle mentioned by the passenger when she spoke of the mirror that had flown off.
My interviewee draws attention to a video that has appeared online.
"If you’ve seen the video, you can see that he’s driving in the right-hand lane and, when the front right-hand wheel makes contact with the kerb, he changes course, trying to steer the car away, but fails to negotiate the slight bend. And after that contact, he drives into the underpass," explains Anatolii Androsovych.
- The passenger says he didn’t respond to her comments. Did you test his blood for alcohol or drugs? - I ask him.
- Urine and blood samples were taken. ‘Sotsioterapiia’ carried out the tests the following day. No alcohol or any drugs were detected in the urine or blood. Also, following an order from the investigator, a blood sample was seized for a toxicological examination.
Furthermore, in response to a question from ‘Censor. NET’ as to whether the ambulance doctors who arrived at the scene of the accident – and who therefore saw the driver’s condition – had been interviewed, and whether the bodycams of the patrol officers who were also at the scene had been seized, the Office of the Prosecutor General stated that a request had been sent regarding the composition of the team that attended the scene. A request has also been sent to the patrol police instructing them to preserve the recordings and provide them. According to departmental regulations, the video footage is retained for at least 30 days.
We also asked the National Police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office whether any of the drivers who were passing by or were in the path of the Mercedes had handed over footage from their dashcams to assist with the investigation. Unfortunately, no one has yet come forward with such information. Perhaps it simply did not occur to people, although it would certainly have helped to clarify the situation. This is because, as the Public Prosecutor’s Office informed ‘Censor’, there was no dashcam in the Mercedes-Benz itself.
This high-profile case is currently being monitored by the Office of the Prosecutor General. And, as Deputy Prosecutor General Viktor Lohachov told "Censor", the head of the team of prosecutors in this criminal case is the Deputy Prosecutor of Kyiv.
Whilst the investigation is ongoing, the relatives of the victims are banding together to ensure their interests are represented in court and say they will press for the driver to receive the maximum sentence. But, just as importantly – despite their grief – the bereaved have decided to do everything possible to prevent similar tragedies in the future. With the involvement of civil society organisations, they have drawn up a petition containing proposals that could have a significant impact on road safety.
The first draft of this document was rejected by the President’s Office, which advised them to submit it to the Cabinet of Ministers. However, as Hryhorii-Fedor Hlushych’s father explained in a comment to ‘Censor’, they have worked with civil society organisations to refine the text of the petition, setting out the reasons why it is being addressed specifically to the President’s Office. Oleksii Hlushych has not yet disclosed the details of the petition itself, explaining that he would like to do so alongside representatives of the civil society sector at a press conference due to take place in the coming days.
Tetiana Bodnia, "Censor.NET"
