This came to light when Tomas Melsko, chief engineer of the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, submitted his report to the court on Wednesday. According to it, the accused woman must have hit the gas few seconds before the accident took place.
The car he was driving was reportedly traveling at a speed of 116 kilometers per hour just before the accident. Then the car started skidding without pushing the gas in.
Today, the case against a woman in her 20s continued at Møre og Romsdal District Court. The woman was charged with negligent homicide and negligent homicide after the horrific accident in the Blindheim tunnel on the E39 in Alesund last summer. 3 women died in this accident.
I checked the car lane speed
The Swedish Road Administration looked at various data to arrive at the speeds the two cars should have been traveling at the time of the crash.
Among other things, they viewed video footage from the subway and retrieved data from the airbag module, or “black box,” in the white car the defendant was driving. Additionally, they have done their own calculations. Mleczko emphasized that data from the “black box” cannot be used alone, but must be viewed in conjunction with other data.
According to Mleczko’s conclusion, the car the defendant was driving was traveling between 100 and 120 kilometers per hour at the time of the collision. The oncoming car in which the three dead women were sitting must have been traveling at a speed of 55 to 75 kilometers per hour at the time of collision.
– I am one hundred percent sure that this speed is somewhere in between, Mleczko told the court.
The Chief Engineer believes that the speed of the two vehicles will be more than 85% in the middle of the rating, ie The white car was traveling at 110 kmph and the green car at 65 kmph at the time of the accident.
The Swedish Road Administration says that both cars were in good technical condition and that there was no fault in the cars involved in the accident. The white car must have been bigger than the green one. The defendant and a passenger in the white car suffered minor to moderate injuries.
Tomas Melsko, senior engineer at the Norwegian Public Roads Administration.
Photo: Øyvind Sandnes / NRK
“Black Box”
On Wednesday, a so-called “black box” report of the car was presented during the hearing.
A small, black box installed at the front of the driver’s cabin has appeared on more new cars in recent years. The box contains a so-called event data recorder (EDR) and stores critical information five seconds before the airbag deploys.
It has almost the same function as the black box in airplanes.
Technology can provide answers to questions such as:
- How fast the car was driving in the last seconds before the accident.
- Did the driver press the accelerator and/or brake pedal?
- If the driver and passenger are wearing seat belts.
Thrown against the wall
Mleczko went through what happened when the cars collided.
According to their analysis, the car belonging to the three dead women must have been thrown 2.46 meters into the air during the collision. After the accident, it should have stopped immediately.
The white car driven by the accused woman spun and hit the tunnel wall.
Wet road surface
The accused woman’s defense lawyer, Reider Andresen, asked questions about friction on the road on the day of the accident.
The road surface inside the tunnel was wet when the accident occurred. Chief Engineer Mleczko explained to the court that none of the investigations they conducted indicated that the road would be slippery as a result.
Recognized criminal liability
The 20-year-old woman pleaded guilty to both charges when the trial began yesterday at Møre and Romsdal District Court. She agrees to pay any compensation claims in the case.
Police believe the woman was driving through the tunnel at speeds of up to 90 kilometers per hour. According to the chargesheet, he must have stepped on the gas, causing her to lose control of the car and veer into the oncoming lane.
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