After a six-day trial, a jury must now decide whether the motorist who caused the death of a motorcyclist by going over a duck committed a criminal offense or was simply involved in a tragic accident.
• Also read: He kills a motorcyclist by running over ducks: the defendant says he accidentally went in the opposite direction
• Also read: The accused wanted to dodge ducks: the young motorcyclist would only have had a few seconds to react
The parties to Éric Rondeau’s trial shared their thesis yesterday during their pleadings at the Joliette courthouse.
The 47-year-old man is charged with dangerous driving that caused the death of Félix-Antoine Gagné at Sainte-Élisabeth in Lanaudière. On July 22, 2019, the 19-year-old motorcyclist collided head-on with Éric Rondeau’s van, which swerved into his lane.
The accused then tried to avoid ducks crossing the street. According to his lawyer, Me Richard Dubé, it was a tragic accident.
“You may have made blunders or careless mistakes while driving without anything happening to you. It happened for Mr. Rondeau,” he pleaded.
“Everyone has seen an animal drive past their car,” he added. We have a natural sympathy for animals. No one will say they should have passed on the ducks.
“Caught” in the curve
Granted, his client made a maneuver to avoid the birds, but thought he was “grazing” the center line. He was “caught” by the curve. He therefore had no intention of changing to the other lane, he asserted. Mr. Rondeau would have realized too late that he was forking. Then the motorcyclist appeared.
“Félix-Antoine drove too fast that day. In the curve, he did not comply with the speed limit of 70 km/h. He knew the road, he drove flat out,” added Dubé.
Me Alexandre Dubois, of the Crown, replied: It was not the victim’s trial but that of the defendant who blocked the motorcyclist’s path with his van and trailer.
“Was it a dangerous manoeuvre? How could she not be,” he said.
“misjudgment”
The attorney reminded the jury that they had to decide whether a reasonable person in the same circumstances as the defendant would have made the same decisions he did.
“A sane person would have waited for the ducks to come or go and stay in his tracks,” he said.
And he didn’t believe the defendant, who said he felt the urgency to drive away for fear a vehicle behind him would hit him: the danger was ahead, the prosecutor insisted.
In fact, in a curve, he then had trouble seeing the vehicles approaching in the other lane. So the victim certainly didn’t see him.
He suggested that the defendant instead showed a “serious error of discretion” in “seizing an opportunity” there to execute an overtaking manoeuvre.
The judge will give the jury his final instructions on the law before deliberations begin today.
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