Delivery van driver gets 6 months in prison for hitting two pedestrians; Woman paralyzed

A 27-year-old man was sentenced to six months in prison for hitting two women with his delivery van in the Utrecht village of Hei en Boeicop in November 2020. The accident left one of the victims paralyzed, NOS reports.

The two women were walking on the side of the road, wearing reflective vests to be visible, when the delivery van hit them from behind. One victim suffered a severe concussion, and the other a spinal cord injury that left her almost entirely paralyzed. Police investigation showed that the driver was on his phone just before the accident, switching between the Marktplaats, WhatsApp, and Snapchat apps.

The Public Prosecution Service (OM) demanded six months in prison and a two-year driving ban against the man. The court went along with that demand, also ordering the man to pay 275,000 in damages to the woman he disabled.

The court considered it proven that the man was using his phone while driving on the narrow, unlit road. He was speeding and did not pay enough attention to the road, which is why he didn’t notice the clearly visible pedestrians, the court ruled. The judge also criticized the man’s behavior after the accident. He deleted his phone data shortly afterward and insisted for a long time that he couldn’t remember whether he had his phone with him. “From all this, an image emerges of a suspect who does everything he can to deny the facts and frustrate the process of finding the truth,” the judge said.

The victims used their opportunity to speak during the trial. “I’ll never walk again, never make a cup of tea for visitors again. And just now that I am almost becoming a grandmother, it dawns on me that I will never be able to splash through the puddles with that child,” the woman who became paralyzed said. “I’ve gone from an active woman who traveled the world to someone who has become completely dependent on others.”