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A WOMAN driver has been accused of vehicular manslaughter after colliding with a labourer, pushing a cartful of cardboard to be recycled, along a busy street.
The High Criminal Court heard that the 41-year-old Bahraini was allegedly looking at her mobile phone when she hit the Bangladeshi victim with the car on her way home from the gym.
He later died of his injuries in the hospital. She has denied charges of driving without paying attention, driving recklessly and posing a danger to the lives of pedestrians walking on the side of the road. The fitness enthusiast has also been accused of property damage and driving a car with an expired registration.
“The accusations against me are false,” she told the Public Prosecution. “I’d been driving in the Saar area, after finishing exercising at a gym in Barbar, headed to my home in north Riffa.
“I use this road three-to-four times a week, and I was alert to what was in front of me.
“From a distance, I saw two (waste) containers and, suddenly, I heard the sound of my car hitting something.
“I got out of the car and it appeared that I had crashed into a container cart and an Asian national who was pushing it. I called the emergency services and I asked for help. I saw him on the ground and tried to talk to him – it didn’t look like he had any external injuries.”
According to the prosecution, the defendant admitted in initial police questioning that, after hearing her phone ring, she briefly looked at it, then looked back ahead and the collision suddenly occurred.
Her lawyer claimed that her device was on ‘focus mode’ and that she could not have received any calls or heard text message notifications as the device automatically declines them in this setting.
“For argument’s sake, even if my client did glance at the phone placed on the passenger’s seat, that would not take more than a few seconds, and she never held the phone in the first place.
“The victim was pushing a cart in a crooked manner, and the defendant was trying to avoid him, but the cart unexpectedly swerved closer to her.”
In a defence memorandum she claimed that her client was steering her vehicle with care, in the centre of her designated lane, on the day of the incident.
Additional details about the day of the accident indicated that it took place at 5.10pm and that the road was visible since the sun had not yet set.
The woman reported that she was driving at 40km per hour and that the usually-lively road was quieter than it was on most days.
Security camera footage of the collision was described in court documents, stating that the Bangladeshi worker was wearing dark-coloured clothes.
It described the collision as ‘propelling the victim from the two-way road into the sandy area lining the street, as there was no sidewalk’.
Judges adjourned the trial and set October 14 as the date a verdict will be issued in the case.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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