The duty of rescue in the traffic offence of failure to render aid

Summary

The Law 20.770 of 2014 modifi ed the pre-existing fi gure of failure to render aid in case of traffi c 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 traffi c, 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.