UDK: 343.3/.7

Vladimir N. Safonov - Candidate of Law, Associate Professor, Associate Professor of the Department of Criminal Law of the North-West Branch, University of Justice named after V. M. Lebedev, federal judge (retired), Saint-Petersburg, Russia

Abstract. In the context of significant losses of human lives that modern Russian society suffers in the sphere of transport, there has been set the goal to study their real protection in the designated area. From the standpoint of a dialectical approach to the content and essence of any social phenomenon, the author addresses the problematic aspects of responsibility for causing death to a person while driving a vehicle. According to various research methods (systemic, logical, comparative and, in fact, legal), there has been analyzed the modern regulatory framework in terms of transport crimes, materials of judicial practice and the latest most relevant publications devoted to the study of crimes in the field of driving vehicles. Based on the analysis of judicial practice, in particular, the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the RF of December 9, 2008 No. 25 “On judicial practice in cases of crimes related to the violation of traffic rules and the operation of vehicles, as well as their illegal seizure without the intent to steal”, and procedural decisions of lower courts of the Russian Federation, there has been determined an unjustified expansion of the judicial approach to the classification of causing death to victims, when this is related to the actual driving of vehicles by a guilty party, not according to the special norms of Chapter 27 of the CC of the RF, but according to a more lenient general norm (Article 109 of the CC of the RF). There have concluded about the inefficiency of criminal-legal protection of human life in the sphere of transport due to such a qualification approach of the law enforcement officer and, as a consequence, through symbolic punishment, which entails “devaluation” of a human life as an object of criminal-legal protection and its ineffective protection. There has been proposed a change in judicial approaches to the qualification of such crimes.

Keywords: careless causing of death; violation of traffic rules; vehicle; driving a vehicle.

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Safonov V.N. The value and safety of human life in the context of criminal-legal casuistry and common sense (based on judicial practice in transport) // Transport law and security. 2025; (2(54)):47―58.