TRIESTE – The national road haulage protest against high fuel prices was halted at dawn, just a few hours after it began, following the death of a truck driver who was hit on the A1 motorway, near Caserta.
The stoppage called by Trasportounito had begun at midnight between Sunday and Monday. The news was announced by the organisation’s secretary general, Maurizio Longo, who explained that the decision to suspend the stoppage was taken in the early hours of the morning. «Since dawn we have gradually started to suspend the stoppage because what happened has shaken us», Longo said, also stressing the human tragedy: the victim was «a young person with a family».
The truck driver was Luigi Nappo, 55, a resident of Marano di Napoli. He was hit about twenty minutes after midnight while he was on foot on the northbound carriageway of the A1, between the Caserta Sud and Caserta Nord junctions, near the San Nicola La Strada service area. According to an initial reconstruction, Nappo had got out of his truck to work with other colleagues in managing the slowdown of heavy goods vehicles joining the protest.
The picket, which had not been notified to police headquarters, had led several HGVs to line up along the middle and right-hand lanes, leaving the overtaking lane free. In that context the truck driver was hit by a Mini Cooper driven by a 23-year-old with no criminal record, resident in Caserta. The young man stopped immediately after the impact and was reported for vehicular homicide. Checks are under way to verify any possible use of alcohol or drugs.
The mobilisation, scheduled to continue until 25 April and supported by around 200 road hauliers at local pickets, ended shortly before five in the morning. A protest launched to denounce the rise in fuel costs turned within a few hours into a tragedy that brings the issue of road safety and the conditions in which road hauliers operate back to the centre of attention.
