Motorist held partially responsible for fatally injuring Aldo Moro road jaywalker

A motorist who ran over and killed a jaywalking pedestrian on Aldo Moro Road in Marsa in 2014 has been held partially responsible for the man's death.

19-year-old Somali national Ibrahim Ismail Yasin had died in hospital, four days after he was hit by a Fiat Fioretino while crossing the four-lane road in March 2014. The force of the impact had shattered the car's windscreen and thrown the man into another carriageway.

The driver of the Fiat, 35-year-old Warren Frendo, was subsequently charged with involuntary homicide and negligent driving.

In a sentence handed down yesterday, magistrate Aaron Bugeja began by noting that the evidence pointed towards the victim having played a pivotal role in the fatal accident, when he made what the court called the “ill-advised and risky” choice to cross the busy multi-lane Aldo Moro Road in Marsa on foot instead of using a nearby footbridge.

“With all due respect to his memory, the Court feels that this senseless action had needlessly placed both himself and motorists in danger.”

The proximity of this footbridge to the place where Yasin had attempted to cross means that “his crossing manoeuver assumed a more absurd and ill-advised character.”

Magistrate Bugeja, however also noted that technical evidence and eyewitnesses had reported the accused as having also been speeding at the time. Motorists had a duty to maintain a proper visual and auditory lookout when behind the wheel, said the court. Although speed limits are imposed on certain stretches of road, drivers are expected to always maintain a safe speed, which may be far slower than the specified speed limit, depending on the circumstances, to allow them to avoid collisions with other cars or pedestrians.

Shortly after the accident, the accused had told the police that he had been observing another car merging into his lane and had braked and steered hard to the right as soon as he noticed the victim in his path, but had been unable to avoid him.

Despite the man’s testimony, traffic camera evidence shows the car that had been changing lane had been doing so two lanes away from him. Additionally, declarations by the accused and his passenger before the magisterial inquiry said that they had both first seen the victim on an adjacent lane.

The court said it was not morally convinced that the accused had been as surprised by the man as he had claimed. “The court is morally convinced that the accused had seen the victim while crossing the road but had been travelling at too fast to stop or take effective evasive action to avoid the fatal impact.” This amounted to reckless driving, it held and although the victim's crossing had been a contributory factor to the incident, it had not been the primary one.

Magistrate Bugeja observed that jurisprudence had established that a third party's contribution to a road accident needed to be the sole cause of the accident in order to neutralise the driver's responsibility. “In the field of criminal law, contributory negligence does not exonerate the driver unless it had been the sole cause of the incident,” held the court, adding that, “had the accused been more careful this accident could have been avoided or had far less serious consequences.”

Frendo was found guilty and slapped with a €5,000 fine as well as being ordered to pay €2,581 in court expenses. His driving license was suspended for six months.

Inspector Robert Vella prosecuted. Lawyer Lucio Sciriha appeared for Frendo.