Batajnicki Drum Crash: Car Slams Under Truck, Road Shut
A collision between a passenger car and a truck on Batajnicki Drum in Zemun claimed one life, halted traffic completely, and the on-site investigation is still underway.
One person died last night on Batajnicki Drum in Zemun in a collision between a passenger car and a truck. The crash happened on September 9 at around 5:50 p.m. Kurir reported that the collision occurred at Batajnicki Drum street number 23, in the municipality of Zemun, while Tanjug and Nova.rs did not give a street number for the location. The gap in the reported address suggests the newsrooms drew on different sources on the ground, which is not unusual in the early stages of covering a traffic accident.
The outlets also differ in how they describe the collision itself. Tanjug’s first report said only that two vehicles had collided on Batajnicki Drum, without specifying what kind. Kurir and Nova.rs were more precise, reporting that it was a passenger car and a truck, and that the front of the car had gone underneath the truck.
The call asking firefighters to free a person from the vehicle came in at 5:55 p.m., just five minutes after the crash. When crews reached the scene, they found a direct collision between the car and the truck, with a person trapped inside the car. In a crash of this kind, where the front of a car slides under a truck, the driver is typically left with little room to get out, so cutting through the metal was necessary to free them. The fire and rescue unit cut through the wreckage to pull the victim from the crushed car. According to Kurir, details of how the intervention unfolded became known at 6:17 p.m., roughly 22 minutes after the crash was reported.
An emergency medical team arrived at the scene alongside the firefighters. Available sources do not currently indicate which direction the vehicle had been traveling before the crash. After examining the victim, doctors pronounced them dead at the scene. There is no official information yet on the identity, age, or place of residence of the person who died, nor is it clear whether they were alone in the vehicle or had passengers.
Traffic on Batajnicki Drum was completely shut down after the crash. Neither Tanjug, Kurir, nor Nova.rs reports when the road reopened, or which direction traffic was rerouted while the intervention was underway.
Both Kurir and Nova.rs label their information as unofficial, gathered from the scene, while Tanjug simply reported that it had “learned of” the accident, without citing an official source. None of the three outlets mentions a statement from the Ministry of Interior or any other institution, nor that the competent prosecutor’s office had gone to the scene. No such statement had arrived by the time this article was published, so some details, including the exact number of people involved in the collision, may be filled in once the on-site investigation wraps up.
Tanjug was first to report the crash, with the shortest account of events. Kurir published details of how the intervention played out, citing information it obtained at 6:17 p.m. Nova.rs ran its version of the story, with the most detail on the collision between the car and the truck, at 7:52 p.m., nearly two hours after the crash itself.
The on-site investigation was still ongoing as of the latest available information. The cause of the collision, and the exact circumstances that led the car to hit the truck head-on, will be established during the investigation. None of the sources currently say whether either driver was given a breath test, or whether criminal charges have been filed against anyone.
It has not yet been reported whether the person who died was driving the car or the truck, nor whether either vehicle was carrying passengers. Those details, along with the exact cause of the crash, are expected only once the on-site investigation is complete.
