Drove recklessly and caused the death of his cousin. The punishment: license revocation

No actual prison time and not even community service: The Traffic Court in Haifa recently sentenced a young man to only six years of license revocation after he was convicted of driving recklessly and causing the death of his cousin who was riding next to him. Judge Or Lerner justified the light sentence, among other things, by the fact that the young man is suffering over the death of his beloved relative.

The accident occurred in February 2021. The defendant, then 17.5 years old, was driving at night in Isfiya with his 16-year-old cousin sitting next to him. A car driving in front of them began to overtake, and the young man chose to overtake both vehicles at once. As a result, a commercial vehicle in the opposite lane was forced to perform an emergency stop, and in an attempt to avoid it, the defendant swerved sharply to the right and lost control. The result was fatal: the driver and his cousin were ejected from the vehicle, which continued to roll on the side of the road until it stopped on its roof.

They were rushed to Carmel Hospital, where the cousin's death was pronounced. The driver, who required resuscitation with electric shocks, suffered a brain hemorrhage and fractures to his facial bones and arm. He was evacuated to Rambam Hospital while sedated and intubated, and after being hospitalized for about a month, he was transferred for rehabilitation at Loewenstein Hospital.

The indictment claimed that the driver, who was diagnosed with PTSD, was driving at an unreasonable speed and performed a dangerous overtake without road conditions allowing it. He confessed and was convicted as part of a plea bargain for causing the death of his cousin by negligence. At the sentencing stage, he requested to settle for a very low threshold of disqualification, claiming that "he cannot manage without the license." The defendant's father, who testified in the proceedings, escalated his son's request even further, claiming that a prolonged disqualification "is like burying him."

Despite the son's admission, both his parents insisted that the accident was not caused by his negligence, but because of a technical malfunction in the vehicle. In contrast, the prosecution argued that this was a high level of negligence that justifies imposing a long and significant license revocation. Judge Lerner adopted this position and determined that the level of negligence in this case was "severe and very close to recklessness." However, he noted that it is possible ("even if with great difficulty") to respect the plea bargain reached by the parties, according to which, despite the fatal result, the defendant's punishment would not include actual imprisonment, nor community service or public service hours, but only disqualification and a fine, alongside suspended sentences.

As part of the considerations in favor of the defendant, the judge credited his admission to the charges, while taking responsibility and saving valuable judicial time, as well as his suffering from the death of his cousin. The defendant said that he and the deceased were close and spent a lot of time together, and that since the incident he has experienced "daily mourning, regardless of the compensation paid and yet to be paid." In the verdict, the defendant was imposed with an actual driver's license revocation for six years, alongside a six-month suspended prison sentence and suspended disqualification, plus compensation of 20,000 shekels to the deceased's family.