The Duty Of Rescue In The Traffic Offence Of Failure To Render Aid

Abstract

The Law 20.770 of 2014 modified the pre-existing figure of failure to render aid in case of traffic accident increasing penalties and restricting judicial freedom in their application. The legislator displaced this way one of the possible foundations of the offence, the breach of a solidarity duty. This contribution proposes a construction according to which the criminal provision protects normatively the life and physical integrity of the participants in the road traffic, so that there must be a relation of imputation between the driving and the results of death or injuries that give rise to the criminal duty of render aid. Such a relationship also exists when the car driver respects the permitted risk, because driving constitutes a special risk whose creation determines a preferential responsibility for the neutralization of the avoidable subsequent effects of the allowed conduct. Keywords Author Keywords:Failure to render aid; traffic offences; duty of rescue; solidarity