The incident occurred on Monday, February 24. We briefly described the case in the article: Mercedes hit girls on a scooter. At that time, the driver contacted us and presented his version of events. We described it in the article: Mercedes driver presents his version of the girls being hit.
The next day, the father of the hit girl called us and said that the driver's story was a lie. According to the girl's father, immediately after the accident the driver tried to convince the girls that the entire situation was their fault. “He told them clearly and explicitly that he was not calling the police so as not to cause them trouble, because it was their fault,” the father says. The frightened girls did not immediately tell their parents what had really happened. “My daughter simply told me that they had fallen over. There was no mention of any car accident,” he adds.
What is more, the father accuses the driver of failing to react after the accident. “That man was standing next to me and did not say a word that there had been an accident; he did not help them after the accident or ask whether he could help them,” he says, describing his surprise when he learned what had really happened from the other girl's mother. “Only then did I ask my daughter whether that was the man who had been standing next to them. She told me: yes,” he recalls.
The father also claims that the driver hid his car after the accident. “He put the car away behind his house,” he says, adding that if he had known the whole truth immediately, “the police would have been called right away.” Nevertheless, after gathering evidence, the police arrived at the scene and fined the driver for failing to yield to cyclists.
Finally, the father stresses that everything happened at around 4:30–5:00 p.m., while it was still light, and says he understands that anyone can make a mistake, but he does not accept the driver's lack of responsibility: “I understand, it can happen to anyone, but not in a situation where I arrive as a parent and he does not even admit in front of me that he hit my child.”
Conflicting versions of the incident
The Mercedes driver's version differs significantly from the account given by the hit girl's father. According to the driver, the incident occurred after dark on a road in Bożejowice, where there is a bicycle path. He claims that he was driving onto the property and noticed two girls on an electric scooter at the last moment. In his view, one of the girls lost control of the vehicle and hit the car's hood herself. “The girl was riding and they hit me, not the other way around. The scooter had no lights,” the driver emphasizes.
Contrary to the girl's father's account, the driver claims that he offered to call the police and an ambulance, but that the father rejected the offer: “I said, let’s call the police, and he said, there’s no need for any police, nothing.” The man suggests that after two hours the situation suddenly changed and the girl's family started a “major fuss.”
In his account, the girl's father pointed to the driver's failure to react and provide assistance, as well as to his hiding the car. “That man was standing next to me and did not say a word that there had been an accident,” the father said, adding that the driver put the car behind the property to hide traces of the incident.
The driver, in turn, draws attention to the girl's lack of a cycling card, lack of a helmet and improper use of the scooter. The police confirm this, indicating that the rider did not have the required authorization to operate an electric scooter and was carrying a passenger, which is prohibited.
Ultimately, the police found the driver at fault for failing to yield to cyclists, and he was fined.
