A woman has been acquitted of responsibility in a fatal accident on Swedish roads. The court has chosen to blame the electric car's cruise control instead.
A motorist has been acquitted in a case where a cruise control has been blamed instead. The accident happened in Växjö, where an electric car, a Volkswagen ID.4, accidentally accelerated and hit several people. Unfortunately with a fatal outcome.
The accident took place last year when a woman arrived at a car park in her Volkswagen ID.4. While trying to find a parking space, she allegedly accidentally activated the cruise control via the touch-sensitive button on the car's steering wheel.
Due to the pressure, the ID.4 accelerated, first crashing into another car and then into a woman who had her grandson with her. While the grandson escaped the accident, the woman later died of her injuries.
According to Volkswagen, the cruise control should only be able to be activated when the car is in motion. Especially because the system adjusts the speed according to GPS data.
In this case, the cruise control could have set the car to a speed of up to 30 km/h. The court assessed that the woman may have inadvertently activated the system via the button on the steering wheel.
The case was heard in the district court. Here, the question of whether the role of the cruise control was the focal point, as the woman had been charged with negligent manslaughter. But the court concluded that there were insufficient grounds to convict her.
Two witnesses who witnessed the accident explained in court what they saw. One thing was certain, that the car was stationary immediately before the accident.
While the other believed that the car was already in motion when it suddenly accelerated. The accused woman's lawyer was not slow to point out the uncertainties in the witnesses' memory. However, the prosecution is not entirely satisfied with the outcome of the case.
– I simply think that the Court of Appeal should hear the case. They can come to a different conclusion, said prosecutor Pernilla Granqvist after the acquittal to Vi Bilägare .
Despite the prosecutor's claim, the appeals court has also chosen to acquit the woman of murder. The court considered that she had not acted in a way that amounts to criminal negligence.
This case has focused on the safety of cruise controls and the use of tocuh screens and panels in modern electric cars. Most recently, Euro NCAP has announced that car manufacturers will receive minus points in crash tests if they do not equip the cars with physical buttons. Read more about it here .
