“Hit-and-run drivers should be prosecuted for felony,” the SOS-Road Crimes PanHellenic Association said on Friday. More than 25 hit-and-run incidents are reported in the capital Athens alone each year.
Drunkenness, uninsured vehicles and lack of driving license are the most important reasons for drivers abandoning their victims, said SOS-Road Crimes, a watchdog demanding an amendment of Article 43 of the Road Traffic Code and the application of Article 306 of the Penal Code in such cases, which raises the offense to a felony, from the current misdemeanor.
“In recent years, hit-and-run incidents are a very common phenomenon,” president of the organization George Kouvidis told Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA).
“It is very important to get help from the dozens of cameras that record any movements. There is even a case of an arrest made after one-and-a-half-years,” he added.
Kouvidis mentioned the gruesome case of a man “who was left on the asphalt for only a short while after a hit-and-run incident, while another seven vehicles ran over him, requiring a DNA sample to identify him.”
Manolis Stavroulakis, also member of the watchdog’s board, said “the law essentially helps the hit-and-run driver go virtually unpunished, as everyone relies on Article 43 – with fines equating a simple hand slap – instead of Article 306, which considers hit-and-runs a felony.”
In addition, he noted, “the tactic hit-and-run drivers use is to show up at a police station two months after the incident, to avoid getting charged under the in flagrante delicto law,” Stavroulakis pointed out.
Some of these cases, he said, “can then take up to ten years to be tried at court, and the sentence is often a two- to six-month removal of the driver’s license.”
A free society should not have government or private industry watching people with cameras. It is dehumanizing and disrespectful towards the people. It will make many people not feel comfortable to be themselves naturally in public. Government is supposed to be our servant, not oppressor and overseer. If there is an Orwellian future to Greece then it may be time to move on to a place where I will not be disturbed everywhere I go. I hope Greece doesn’t turn into China or even the USA in this. Mind you hit-and-runs are not a good thing to have but there ought to be different ways to deal with this issue than use of cameras. Having this leads to a path to tyranny. First they will target hit-and-runs and then next every other aspect of how you choose to live your life. Think of China and its social credit score system that people are forced into. With too low a score they cannot even leave the country. We don’t want this here or anywhere! I think newer technologies like sensors built into cars where they could take over to ensure no one is hit when in motion could deal with this problem much more effectively and humanly.