Driver Who Killed 4-Year-Old Child in Alleyway... Why Was He Found Not Guilty?

Driving at 14 km/h... 3m to collision point
Road Traffic Authority "Collision was unavoidable"

A driver who fatally struck a 4-year-old child who suddenly ran into an alleyway with a passenger car was acquitted. The court ruled that the driver could not have responded to the accident due to the short distance between the vehicle's position and the collision point.

According to a Yonhap News report on the 15th, Judge Lee Ju-young of the Incheon District Court Criminal Division 17 announced that he acquitted A (42), a Russian national overseas Korean, who was charged with negligent homicide under the Special Act on Traffic Accident Handling.

A was on trial for allegedly hitting and killing B (4) while driving a passenger car in an alleyway in Incheon at around 12:58 p.m. on April 10 last year. The accident occurred on a side road in front of a restaurant, where parked cars lined both sides of the street. At the time of the accident, A was driving slowly at 14 km/h when B suddenly ran out onto the road from behind a parked car. B, who was struck and trapped under A’s vehicle, was immediately transported to a university hospital but died 20 minutes later from traumatic head injuries.

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The prosecution charged A with causing the accident by not properly checking ahead while driving on the side road and for not braking quickly enough. The Incheon branch of the Korea Road Traffic Authority, which analyzed the situation at the court’s request, determined that at 14 km/h, the stopping distance after spotting a pedestrian is 4.9 meters. However, the distance between A’s vehicle and the collision point when B ran onto the road was only 3 meters. Accordingly, the Road Traffic Authority opined that even if A had braked suddenly after spotting B, the collision could not have been avoided. However, they noted that sudden braking might have prevented B from being run over by the wheels.

Judge Lee stated, “The analysis by the Road Traffic Authority assumes that A could have immediately recognized B when he came out from behind the parked car,” adding, “It is also difficult to conclude that A could have recognized B immediately.” He continued, “Only a death certificate indicating ‘traumatic head injury’ as the direct cause of death was submitted as evidence,” and said, “This evidence alone is insufficient to recognize that A caused the victim’s death through negligence by failing to properly check ahead and operate the braking system in time.”