2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 15:44
Damage when loading or unloading a parked car must be reported. Anyone who starts their car and drives away afterwards is hit and missed.
Anyone who causes damage to another car while loading or unloading a motor vehicle and then flees is a hit and miss. This also applies if the car was not driving at all in the accident but was parked on the side of the road. That was decided by the Cologne Higher Regional Court.
Parked trucks are considered a means of transport
The case under discussion was about a scrap dealer who wanted to load a pile of metal onto his truck. When the metal sheets were thrown onto the loading area, one of them fell and caused a parked car damage of 2000 euros. But instead of waiting for the owner or the police, the scrap dealer picked up the tin and drove away. Since a witness had noted the license plate, the perpetrator could be convicted and received a penalty order from the public prosecutor. He rejected it on the grounds that his car was parked and the engine was off when the damage occurred. For this reason, in his opinion, there is no "hit and run".
According to the German lawyer hotline, the judges saw it differently. "The loading and unloading of stopped vehicles is a traffic-related part of stationary traffic if there is an internal connection with the function of a motor vehicle as a means of transport," explains lawyer Jörg-Matthias Bauer. The scrap dealer had undoubtedly stopped at the pile of metal to serve the purpose of his truck as a means of transport. This means that the materials to be transported could also slip or ricochet off a typical risk arising from the traffic process (OLG Cologne, Az. III-1 RVs 138/11). (mid)
