Juridicalblog.net

Railway crossing accident

Dan — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 19:06:47 +0000

In my country there’re still lots of local railway lines, which are crossed by the roads, however not protected by railway gates. Only traffic signs in front of the railway crossings warn drivers of such unprotected crossings. Local railway lines, which often run through the forests, aren’t always straight, there’re lots of bends there, thus the visibility for the drivers isn’t optimal, so engine drivers have to use a horn in front of the crossing. In spite of this, accidents between trains and cars happen, fortunately only seldom.
Here’s one case like this.
A man aged of 55 drove a lorry along the local road and came near an unprotected railway crossing, so he slowed down and finally stopped in front of the crossing and looked to the right and to the left, but he didn’t see any train, so he tried to cross the rail, but while still on the rail, he saw a train coming from the left hand side. He hadn’t seen it before, because of the trees growing along the rail. Because of the noise in his cab, he didn’t hear neither the horn of the engine, nor the noise of the train itself earlier. He tried to excape with a vehicle from the rail, but the lorry was too long. The crash between the train and the back part of the lorry happened, fortunately no passenger from the train was injured and the engine was only slightly damaged.
This accident was investigated by the policemen from the Traffic police station and by the specific investigational department of the railway company. During the investigation it was clear, that the engine driver hadn’t caused this accident. It had been exclusively caused by the man driving a lorry, because he hadn’t paid close attention to the train coming, so he was accused of the crime called The general danger.
During the investigation he pleaded quilty, his lorry had had a lawful insurance of the responsibility for damages caused in the traffic, so the damage on the engin was completely covered by the ensurance company. The crime itself wasn’t too dangerous. The perpetrator commited it by his negligence not intentionally, he had a good reputation and his criminal record had been empty. It was possible to conditionally stop his accusation by the prosecutor.
Such decision was accepted both by the perpetrator and by the railway company.

Winter is over

Dan — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 19:05:40 +0000

Winter finished last Sunday, but there’s still a lot of snow in my region. On the Praděd mountain, only 28 km from the town, where I work, there’s still a layer of snow 1,80 m high! When I got up on Monday, the temperature was 11 degrees Celsius below freezing! It’s surprising because I don’t live on the pole.
But this morning it was much warmer, so I’m wearing low shoes and hope, I’ll be able to hide my winter coat next week.
Winter is over and spring is welcomed.

Is English easier to learn then German?

Dan — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 19:40:57 +0000

I don’t have enough time to visit language courses, so I try to learn foreign languages all by myself.
I started learning German a few years after I had seriously started learning English. At first I thought German was much more difficult to learn than English. I wasn’t able to remember new German words, to understand German grammar and my spoken German was of a zero level. I didn’t feel any progress.
Last year I bought an educational programme on CD ROM called Sprachkurs Deutsch. It consists of 168 German lessons. I haven’t finished too many of them so far, but I have to say that I like a German grammar now. The Sprachkurs Deutsch helps me not only to understand German grammar, but to improve my vocabulary and to make my spoken German better, too.
I believe that with a continuous practice I’ll be able to speak German quite well.
That’s the reason that I have changed my former idea. Nowadays I think that German is easier to learn than English, because English seems to me as difficult as before, but German less difficult.
I’d like to know how other people, who learned both English and German sooner, look at these two languages and which of them they consider more difficult to learn and why.

A meeting

Dan — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 19:08:23 +0000

Last week I spent three days in the Justice Academy. A meeting of prosecutors and judges from the whole country took place there. We discussed problems connected with investigation and punishing of car accident crimes. Experts from the forensic engineering institute, encluding the head of it, were our lecturers.
Car accident criminality is a special one, because every driver can commit a crime while driving a car. It’s quite easy. Every driver have to drive a car by the rules of road traffic. For example a driver, who drives a car along the side road, have to give a priority to a driver, who drives a car along the main road. If he doesn’t do this in a crossroad a car accident will happen and such driver is responsible for causing it. If someone is injured during a car accident, the offender may be accused and later sentenced.
During our meeting we especially talked over collisions between cars and pedestrians. It’s a hard work to investigate such car accidents and every time is necessary to have an expert opinion.
This meeting was useful for me a lot, because as a prosecutor, I supervize car accidents investigation. Every year I send at least 70 drivers in front of the court for crimes committed by them on the roads. Around 50 other drivers could be sent there too, but in their cases I make use of a special part of our Criminal Proceeding Code and I conditionaly stop their cases.
I usually go to the Justice Academy two or three times a year. It’s a pleasant break in my ordinary work and it’s a rare occasion to meet colleagues from other officies there. Some of them are my friends or fellow students.
And one thing is really funny there. The Justice Academy is situated in the same building as the Educational centre of the prison guard. The building itself is just next to the prison, so some prisoners from this prison, wearing typical prison uniforms, come to the Justice Academy to do cleaning works. They can move inside the building completely freely. They aren’t guarded there. So during our breaks between lectures, prosecutors and judges relaxed in the corridor, which was being cleaned by prisoners at the same time. These prisoners knew who, we were, so some of could meet there a prosecutor who had sent them in front of the court or a judge, who had sent them to prison.

Galvanized plates case

Dan — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 19:34:28 +0000

A young unemployed man living in a small willage in a remote region, didn’t like going to the job centre to ask for a job. Instead of this he decided to get money by commiting crimes.
He knew, that some roofs of cottages nearby are covered with galvanized plates, so he usually arrived to such cottage when it was abandoned and tore plates off from the roofs, then he cut plates into a small pieces and hid them at home. He didn’t want to sell plates immediately, because it would have been striking. During 2 weeks he managed to steal plates from 5 cottages. The value of stolen plates was quite high and cottages without roofs were unprotected for a few days, so their owners were caused another damage, because this crime was commited during the rainy season.
Police wasn’t able to detect the perpetrator, because there weren’t any witnesses and he didn’t try to sell stolen plates to a company that purchases metal from the people, but after a few weeks someone stole plates from another 2 cottages and it was clear that plates were stolen by the same person. This time the police managed to catch him leaving the second cottage with stolen plates.
The perpetrator didn’t try to deny his crime and he allowed the police to search the cellar, where he hid all the stolen plates.
He was accused both of a theft and of a crime called Damaging of another person’s thing. He was questioned the same day and during one week an expert assessed both the value of stolen plates and the one of the damaged things from the unprotected cottages.
It was his first crime, so he wasn’t arrested during investigation. The judge sentenced him to jail for 14 months. The punishment seemed too strict for him, because he only expected imprisonment, which would have been conditionally hold off for a few years. But he stole things from 7 cottages and he was responsible for damaging other things on them. His punishment was found adequate by the prosecutor who didn’t appeal and the appeal of the perpetrator was rejected during the appellate procedure.
I have to add that he didn’t execute the whole punishment. After less then 8 months of imprisonment he was conditionaly released on 2 year’s trial and during it he proved himself, so he didn’t have to to be sent to prison to execute the rest of his punishment.