Elderly woman dies in a traffic accident – and is mocked on Twitter
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February 13, 2022 – 9:44 am Clock
By Jan Dafeld and Burak Kahraman
In Berlin, an 81-year-old cyclist died tragically in an accident with a truck. Without being there, she accuses a man of “stupidity” on Twitter and claims that she “could have avoided the accident”. The excitement is great. The CDU publicly distances itself from its party member. RTL, the man is now rowing back and apologizing to the family of the dead.
Berlin: Mann describes the tragic death as “stupidity”
“I am assuming that the dead person could have avoided this fatal accident by driving with foresight,” Kasten Limberg wrote on Twitter on Wednesday evening. When the truck driver pulled away, “the cyclist came and, as so often, she had to pass before the truck was already moving,” he speculated. He described the tragic accident as “stupidity”.
The police had previously announced that the truck wanted to turn left from an exit on Saargemünder Straße. He had caught the cyclist who was on the bike path. She died at the scene of the accident.
The excitement about Limberg’s statements is great. He apologized for his words on Twitter on Thursday. “My tweet hurt people’s feelings, I didn’t mean to and I’m sorry – obviously I didn’t mean to blame the old lady,” he wrote. “Every traffic casualty is one too many – I wanted to start a discussion about the causes, but I chose the wrong path for that.” His account is now deactivated.
Man apologizes to family: “That was completely wrong and I’m sorry”
RTL explains Limberg in more detail: “I wanted to address a problem, but I completely ignored the dignity of the woman,” he says. “That was completely wrong and I’m sorry,” he apologized to the family of the woman who was killed.
He is “not a bike hater” and “for the mobility revolution,” emphasizes Limberg. “But the dead are not allowed to take anything.” Many cyclists have “no sensitivity to dangerous situations,” he claims. Forming an opinion about the accident from a distance was still “inappropriate”.
Berlin CDU distances itself from its party member
But Limberg’s tweets are making waves even in Berlin politics – because Limberg is a CDU member. The Berlin CDU publicly distances itself from his words.
“This man does not speak for the CDU and not for the Berlin CDU. There are no two opinions in the CDU that deep dismay and condolences to the relatives are appropriate at this point,” says Stefan Evers, General Secretary of the Berlin CDU of the “Berliner Zeitung”. “In such cases one should always exercise piety.”
Both the CDU and Limberg himself emphasize that he is a simple member of the party. He has neither a mandate nor an office. Limberg explains that he has only been to a few meetings of the party in the past.
Berlin: Over 300 road deaths since 2015
The Senator for the Environment, Mobility, Consumer and Climate Protection in Berlin, Bettina Jarrasch, expressed her condolences to the family of the killed cyclist on Wednesday. “I would like to express my deepest condolences to the relatives. We will examine the place to eliminate threats,” wrote the Greens politician on Twitter. “Safety is the main goal of transport policy.”
In 2020 alone, there were 126,286 traffic accidents in Berlin. 50 people were killed, 18 of them were cyclists. Since 2015, more than 300 people have died on Berlin’s roads.