Suffering a traffic accident is by nature a painful and shocking experience.
But in Germany what follows – being confronted by the cold reality of the country's legal bureaucracy – can be just as traumatic.
Speaking to The Local, two women in Berlin shared their baffling experience of being struck by a car, and then getting hit with an administrative fine.
The accident
Darya, from Belarus, and Emilia, from Mexico, are Berlin residents who have both lived in Germany for more than 10 years. Darya co-runs a music agency and Emilia works for a non-profit NGO.
In May of last year, the two friends were crossing Kopernikuss Straße – near the intersection with Simon-Dach Straße in Friedrichshain – on a Thursday evening when they were struck by a car.
Recounting the experience to The Local, Darya noted that the place where they crossed did not have 'zebra stripes' but that it did have a pedestrian symbol painted on the ground to signify that it was a crossing zone.
"I remember looking to the left, not seeing anything. Then I looked to the right, I didn't see anything. Then I looked left again, and that was last thing I remember," Darya recalled.
"Then this huge force...I didn't even understand what was happening, and I was rolling on the ground…"
Both women recalled the event similarly and in vivid detail. Emilia, who was struck first, rolled onto the car's front end and into the windshield, while Darya was pushed forward and sent rolling across the street.
Emilia described being dazed for a moment before she realised that she was injured: "I turned around and saw the car and I was like, 'Okay, that's not just like a dent in the car, I actually destroyed his windshield'."Â
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The aftermath
Some people who saw the accident stepped in to try and help, and then police and emergency responders arrived shortly afterwards. Emilia and Darya were put in separate ambulances and taken to the hospital.
Darya suffered some abrasions, bruises and swelling, and was released after a few hours. Emilia was held overnight and given an MRI scan to monitor her head injury.Â
In the days and weeks that followed, the women discussed whether they should take any further action to resolve the situation.
Despite their injuries, they decided not to sue the driver, hoping to put the incident behind them. They got the impression that he might have been a delivery worker who relied on his vehicle for employment, and decided they didn't want to make the situation more difficult for him.
"We didn't feel like it was the right call," Emilia said.
The bureaucratic nightmare
But while Darya and Emilia were ready to try and heal and move on, the authorities were not.
An initial notice from German authorities arrived following the accident, while their bruises were still visible.
"It was a very scary letter," Darya said. "In very bureaucratic German...we knew the words, but we couldn't quite understand the meaning."
Emilia shared the letter she received from the Berlin Police with The Local. It notes an allegation against them as pedestrians who crossed the road "without paying attention to the traffic," and adds that "a criminal investigation has therefore been launched against you."
The letter provided a short deadline during which they could respond to the allegations.
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They turned to friends for help but didn't get many useful answers.
"Everyone told us it wasn't clear who was accusing us, and of what," Darya said.
Uncertain if they were potentially in trouble, Darya and Emilia even sought legal counsel. But in a very brief introductory meeting a lawyer basically advised against legal action. So in the end they responded to the letter with a written explanation of the accident from their point of view.
Then they received a follow-up letter which said the authorities could not verify their story – that it contradicted information provided by witnesses.
"I have no idea who these witnesses are to this day," Darya said.
Ultimately, it seemed that the authorities found Darya and Emilia to be at least partially at fault in this instance, and therefore they were hit with a fine - for €10.
The fee itself was trivial, but far worse, they said, was the idea that the German state saw them as to blame for the accident. And the feeling of uncertainty about the whole legal process that followed.
The follow-up notice directed them towards a link to an online form to pay the fine. But doing so required signing a form that was the equivalent of an admission of guilt.
"For us it was like, out of principle we're not filling in this form because we don't believe it was our fault...but we wanted to pay the fine rather than taking this further," Emilia said.
To get around the form, they sent the money by bank transfer instead.
Later both women also got a letter from their health insurance providers asking for a small fee for the ambulance ride. Darya suggested the ambulance fee was also a small number, around ten euros.
Lack of closure
In hindsight, Darya and Emilia suggested they might have reacted differently if they knew how Germans tend to deal with these kinds of incidents.
Emilia described visiting a doctor some time after the accident: "She was furious...telling me, 'You should have come to me right after it happened, so that you could take a few weeks off [work]..."
Instead Emilia had been back at her job as usual on Monday after being hit on Thursday.
"She also said 'You should have sued this person, because they could do that again'...and hearing all this also had an impact on me," Emilia noted. "I then felt guilty about how I handled the situation."
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Speaking roughly one year after the accident, Darya and Emilia suggest that what remains is an acute lack of closure.
"I still feel like maybe someday I will get another letter for some reason about this," Emilia said, adding that they never did receive confirmation of payment or any other kind of official conclusion from the police.
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