Abstract

Practice shows that the discussed concepts of criminal liability for road accidents, i.e. objective imputation, extended liability, criminal negligence, deliberate unintentionality, assessment of contributory behaviour should not be treated as universal guidelines for criminal proceedings authorities. They may find application for typical events with easily recognisable acta rea. However, they cannot leave out mens rea, in particular intention and consciousness, predictability of behaviour of road users, as well as people even indirectly associated with road traffic. It may be stated that uncritical acceptance of a certain construct of liability offers a temptation to apply it subjectively, without considering whether the culprit could and should foresee the effects of their behaviour, the need to respond to unpredictable behaviours of other road users, and also whether they had enough time to perform rational defensive manoeuvres or predict and accept the consequences which were due to the factors which were totally beyond their control. Hence the postulate as well as the research assumption of the author to treat the discussed concepts of criminal liability for road accidents exclusively as potentially applicable having considered the rational principle of common sense which takes into account the specifics of road accidents, primarily accidents that are absolutely unpredictable and the causes of which are frequently very complex. The author emphasizes that his study has been based on the juridical/dogmatic analysis as well as own research, which he has used for describing concrete cases in the article.