An Iesian caught without a driving license made the judges impatient. An argument that “masked” him – Ziarul de Iasi

Marian Moca was driving a Renault Fluence, when he was stopped by the border police in Trifești, heading towards Bivolari, on the night of April 30/May 1, 2021. He presented only his identity card and registration certificate the car. Asked about his license, he said he had one, but not on him. However, the checks carried out by the police showed that Moca did not have a driver’s license for any category of motor vehicle. The criminal case followed.

Caught again without a license

It didn’t take long, however, and the police met Moca once more. This time, in Iasi, while driving an Audi A4, on August 26 of the same year. Again he claimed he had a license but had lost it. He added that he had bought his license 10 years ago, abroad, for the sum of 2,000 euros, and he was convinced that the act was valid. The checks again confirmed that Moca was lying. He didn’t even have a license abroad.

Questioned as a suspect, the driver confessed that he did not have a license. He had lied, thinking he would get out of trouble. But he knew how to drive, as he had completed the courses of a driving school, even if he had not passed the exam to obtain his license. Besides, he was a car mechanic. Sent to court for driving without a license, he was sentenced to one year in prison for each of the two offences. The resulting sentence of one year and four months in prison was suspended during a two-year probationary period.

The sentence was contested by Moca, who emphasized the fact that he had admitted his crime during the criminal investigation phase. The Magistrates of the Court did not dispute the fact that, by virtue of his profession as a car mechanic, he possessed the theoretical knowledge and practical skills to drive. He criticized the judges’ assessment that it was only chance that caused no accident. “The main causes of accidents are failure to adapt the speed to the legal limits and road conditions and making risky overtakings, insufficient insurance when performing turning maneuvers and not giving priority, actual road conditions, failure to observe preventive behavior by pedestrians, alcohol consumption or drugs and, last but not least, ignorance of the legal rules and ignorance of the practical skills needed to drive vehicles. The number of people who drive without a license is clearly lower than that of drivers who have a license, so that, in the economy of road accidents, those who are guilty of causing them, most of the time, have a driving license”, the driver said , requesting the postponement of the punishment. Even the reduced amount of the sentence was criticized, with Moca appreciating that a lesser sentence could have been ordered.

The judges got angry

Moca’s arguments appear to have irritated the Court of Appeal magistrates who reviewed the appeal. They criticized the behavior adopted by the driver, as well as the repetition of the act shortly after he had been caught the first time. “He easily resorted to adopting a behavior contrary to the law, driving vehicles on public roads – at night, on a national road, in the morning, in the municipality of Iași, each time making false and defiant statements in front of the police bodies who detected him in traffic, in the sense that he would have a driver’s license, with the childish motivation that he thus wanted to get out of trouble. Such behavior demonstrates a cruel defiance of both the law and the state bodies entitled to apply the law, an inability of the defendant to join a natural social order”, the judges stated.

However, since the situation of a defendant cannot be aggravated in the context of his own appeal, the magistrates only ordered the Court’s sentence to be maintained. The decision of the Court of Appeal is final.