“These are serious facts,” the public prosecutor started on Tuesday in the Ghent court. “Madam lost control of her steering wheel in the middle of the night and ended up in a hedge with her car. She was under the influence of laughing gas. That bottle was found a little further in a field. Witnesses had seen they had thrown it away.”
Witnesses had also seen how the driver and her girlfriend, the passenger, had a lot of fun. “They were laughing all the time,” they said. The young woman, a 20-year-old student, had a provisional driver’s license at the time of the incident. So she was not allowed to drive without a supervisor.
Lesson learned
“She has lost control of her vehicle,” said Advocate Nathalie Gernay, who performed for the young woman. Gernay explained that her client certainly learned her lesson. “She has also had a lot of costs due to this accident. It has certainly arrived.”
“My client says that she herself did not use laughing gas. Only the passenger did that. She didn’t know you couldn’t transport that,” said Gernay. The lawyer therefore asked the acquittal for her client with regard to the use of laughing gas.
The judge called the incident very stupid. “You have to respect the rules,” he said. He gave the student a fine of 1,200 euros, of which 800 euros with delay. She also received a 45 -day driving ban.
