two county elected officials attended the online meeting while driving

At least two of Sibiu’s county councilors took part in the extraordinary meeting on Thursday afternoon while they were behind the wheel. One of them addressed the plenary while also holding the phone in his hand while driving.

It is about the extraordinary meeting of the Sibiu County Council convened “immediately” (that is, from Wednesday) for 15:00 on Thursday, March 21, 2024. The meeting had two items on the agenda, one for the adoption of the budget Sibiu Airport in 2024, the second being developed for the budget of the Roads and Bridges company, for the current year. According to custom, the extraordinary meetings of the CJ Sibiu are organized online, with each elected county member participating in the discussions through the devices of his choice (computer, mobile phone, tablet, etc.).

At the beginning of the meeting, Laura Barac, county councilor from PSD, intervened, who announced that, together with her colleagues, she would abstain from voting. “In relation to the vote that (PSD county councilors – no) expressed during the meeting where the county budget was voted, we will abstain from the two projects, both related to the county budget, for which we did not give – by chapters – a favorable vote”, justified Laura Barac. Her brief intervention was made while Laura Barac was in traffic, being behind the wheel, and, as can be seen in the images from the recording of the meeting, the phone through which she was connected to the meeting was being held in her hand. “The car is equipped with bluetooth”, answered Laura Barac, when asked by Turnul Sfatului if “administration can also be done from behind the wheel”.

Adrian Echert, county councilor from USR, also actively participated in the meeting, also behind the wheel, but with the phone placed in a system attached to the dashboard. “As it was an extraordinary meeting, I personally got caught between two emergencies that I had to deal with and I could only listen to the meeting on the go. I tried to pull to the right when I had to intervene”, Adrian Echert also answered the same questions.

The representatives of IPJ Sibiu showed that, in situations like that of Adrian Echert, there can be no question of a contravention, as long as the phone through which he addressed the plenary session of the CJ was not held in his hand.

In the case of Laura Barac, things fall within the scope of contraventions. IPJ Sibiu representatives point out that “the use of mobile phones when drivers are driving on public roads, except for those equipped with hands-free devices” constitutes a contravention punishable by “from 6 to 8 fine points and 4 penalty points”. If the phone is used as described above while violating any other traffic rule, then 4 or 5 fine points are applied and the right to drive is suspended for a period of 30 days.

See below the recording of the CJ Sibiu meeting on Thursday afternoon

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