Alex Zanardi, investigating judge files investigation: truck driver without fault

Regarding the Alex Zanardi accident, no culpable responsibility can be attributed to the driver who on 19 June 2020 was driving the truck with which the former Formula 1 driver and Paralympic champion collided while with his handbike he traveled the provincial road 146 between San Quirico d’Orcia and Pienza, in the province of Siena, on the occasion of the ‘Obiettivo Tricolore’ solidarity relay promoted by disabled athletes The judge of the preliminary investigations of the Court of Siena, Ilaria Cornetti, accepted the filing request with which the Last April 26, the chief prosecutor of Siena, Salvatore Vitello, and the deputy prosecutor Serena Menicucci, owners of the investigation, had asked the investigating judge not to proceed against the truck driver Marco Ciacci, 45, resident in Castelnuovo Berardenga (Siena) . Ciacci was under investigation for the crime of very serious negligent injuries. Zanardi’s family, represented by the Paduan lawyer Carlo Covi, had opposed the request for filing before the investigating judge. “There was an invasion of the lane by the truck which was decisive for Zanardi’s reaction, causing the steering maneuver to the right, which resulted in the loss of control of the vehicle. If the truck had been regularly inside its lane the accident would not have happened “, said Covi during the preliminary hearing on May 26 in the Court. “We absolutely do not agree with the request for filing or the conclusions reached by the technical consultant of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, engineer Dario Vangi, who claims – explained the lawyer Covi of the Court of Padua – that having just passed the center line does not caused the accident. The question is: is it possible to pass ‘just’ with a red light? Zanardi’s reaction. It is not possible that the truck driver was not responsible for the accident: Zanardi saw him coming and suddenly swerved because he invaded the lane “. Also present at the hearing was Zanardi’s wife, Daniela Manni, the offended party in the proceedings. His lawyer had also asked for an integration on the investigation with a new expert opinion. However, the investigating magistrate evidently did not consider it useful or necessary by arranging for the filing. Siena, Salvatore Vitello, at the end of last April, had forwarded the request for dismissal of the proceeding to the investigating judge of the Court “not seeing any causal link between the conduct of Ciacci driving the articulated vehicle and the determination of the road accident following which Zanardi reported serious injuries “. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, explained Vitello in the filing request,” the driver of the truck was traveling at a moderate speed and in any case well below the speed limit set on that stretch of road “. Ciacci “reacted promptly to the sight of the cyclist by implementing an emergency maneuver (steering towards the right edge of the carriageway) to move away from the centerline and try to avoid the impact with the handbike driven by Zanardi; an impact that unfortunately occurred entirely within the lane pertaining to the articulated vehicle “.” In the aforementioned dynamic “, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, as stated in the conclusions of the request for filing,” the position of the articulated vehicle on the carriageway and in particular the circumstance that shortly before the impact, in facing the curve to the left, Ciacci had moved closer to the centerline, trampling it halfway with the front left wheels and passing it by a few centimeters with the rear ones; with consequent exclusion of criminal responsibility culpable on the part of the suspect “.