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news
Tour de France spectator with placard‘Allez Opi-Omi’: Prosecutors seek four-month suspended jail sentence for women who caused Tour de France crash
Prosecutors in France are seeking a four-month suspended prison sentence for the woman who caused a huge crash at the opening stage of this year’s Tour de France in Brittany, causing four riders to abandon the race.
The 31-year-old, from the Finistère department where the opening stage from Brest to Landernau took place, is charged with “endangering others by manifestly deliberate violation of a regulatory obligation of safety and prudence,” causing “involuntary injuries, with incapacity not exceeding three months.”
The maximum penalty she could face is a €15,000 fine and/or 12 months’ imprisonment.
The four-month suspended sentence sought by prosecutors at a hearing at the criminal court in Brest today is intended to serve as a “warning,” reports Le Telegramme.
The court has reserved judgment, with the sentence due to be handed down on 9 December.
Professional riders’ union the CPA has joined the action as a civil party and is seeking token compensation of €1 to reinforce to spectators their responsibility regarding race safety, as is the ANCP, which represents French riders.
Three riders – Cyril Lemoine of B&B Hotels, Groupama-FDJ’s Ignatas Konovalovas and Team DSM’s Jasha Sütterlin – were unable to carry on in the race, while a fourth, Movistar’s Marc Soler, finished the stage but had to abandon afterwards due to injuries sustained in the crash.
The woman who caused the crash as she held up a sign greeting her grandparents in German fled the scene and handed herself in to gendarmes four days after the incident, which happened on 26 June.
> “I’m ashamed, I regret my stupidity” says spectator who caused Tour de France crash
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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7 comments
This feels very much like performative justice, and as such, will be a drag on all other searches for a balanced and proper application of the law, to aid cycling, and cyclists themselves. The whole thing makes me deeply uneasy.
The grammar in that headline may be an interesting Freudian slip.
I feel that the interfering spectator should suffer some real punishment. I fully realize that the results were completely unintended; so are most results of car crashes caused by inattention or stupidity (not even considering outright malevolence like many drivers have towards bicycles). And I don't fault the urge to photobomb that nice message. But the idea that someone could step onto the road, holding up a sign blocking even more space than they would on their own, and NOT PAY ATTENTION TO THE TRAFFIC - imagine if she did the same thing on a temporary Grand Prix race (oh wait there would have been protective barriers and restrictions against getting that close), or even a normal London or New York thoroughfare where the traffic was cars and trucks rather than bicycles. At least in that case she would have paid the price, rather than so many professional athletes.
So, other than the person pictured holding the offending placard, who are the others?
Everybody who's ever contributed to the selfie / photobombing roadside culture at big events.
But only the women, cos there wouldn't be enough space in the jails for all the men.
We have a pretty good idea of the penalty for a similar case in the UK- except it would be unlikely to reach court because 'she didn't mean to cause all those injuries'. She's unlikely to go to jail unless French justice is a lot juster than ours- but the case requires a real fine
I suspect that the final penalty will be much closer to that symbolic 1 euro...