A collision, an injury, and the complaint that decides the file.

TCK 89/1. A person who by negligence causes pain to the body of another, or causes deterioration of another's health or capacity to perceive, is punished with four months to two years' imprisonment or a judicial fine.

Which paragraph applies depends on what the injury did.

A bone fracture is the finding that most often moves a file out of the first paragraph. It comes from a medical report, and reports are answerable.

What negligence means here

TCK 22/2 defines negligence as bringing about the result described in the offence without foreseeing it, through a breach of the duty of care and attention. TCK 22/3 defines conscious negligence: the driver foresaw the result but did not want it. Where conscious negligence is found, the sentence is increased by one third to one half.

TCK 22/5: where more than one person acted negligently, each is liable for their own fault and each sentence is fixed separately according to that fault. Fault is not all or nothing here. The percentage attributed to you is the number the rest of the file turns on.

TCK 89/5. Investigation and prosecution of negligent injury depend on a complaint. The exception is narrow and it matters: where the offence is committed with conscious negligence, no complaint is required — except for injury falling within the first paragraph.

Read plainly: an ordinary negligent collision needs a complaint, however serious the injury. A collision where conscious negligence is found and the injury goes beyond the first paragraph proceeds whether anyone complains or not.

TCK 73/1. If the person entitled to complain does not do so within six months, no investigation or prosecution may be carried out. Under TCK 73/2 that period runs from the day that person knew or learned of the act and of who committed it — not from the day of the accident.

TCK 73/4. Withdrawal of the complaint by the injured party ends the case, unless the law provides otherwise. Withdrawal after the judgment has become final does not stop the sentence being executed.

Time limits on the other side: where the applicable upper limit of imprisonment does not exceed five years, TCK 66/1-e gives a prosecution period of eight years. Under TCK 66/4 that limit is read from the upper end of the penalty in the statute, and under TCK 66/3 the aggravated forms disclosed by the evidence are taken into account. A file you left behind in August does not quietly disappear the following summer.

CMK 253/1-b-2 places negligent injury under TCK 89 inside uzlaştırma, criminal mediation, whether or not the offence depends on a complaint. It is a formal procedure run through the mediation bureau at the public prosecutor's office, not a private arrangement between two drivers at the roadside.

How it runs:

• Where the offence falls within scope and there is sufficient suspicion to bring a charge, the prosecutor sends the file to the mediation bureau (CMK 253/4).
• A mediator appointed from the Ministry of Justice list puts the offer to both sides. You have seven days to answer. Saying nothing counts as refusal (CMK 253/4).
• The mediator must conclude within thirty days of receiving the file copies. The bureau may extend that twice, by up to twenty days each time (CMK 253/12).
• Negotiations are confidential (CMK 253/13), and nothing said in them may be used as evidence in any investigation, prosecution or case (CMK 253/20).
• If you perform the agreed obligation in a single payment, the prosecutor issues a decision of non-prosecution (CMK 253/19). If performance is deferred, in instalments or continuing, the decision to bring charges is postponed, and limitation does not run during that period.
• Where more than one person was injured, all of them must accept for mediation to go ahead (CMK 253/7).
• One attempt only. If mediation fails, it cannot be attempted again (CMK 253/18).
• Where mediation succeeds, the mediator's fee and the other mediation costs are borne by the Treasury (CMK 253/22).

A settlement also closes the civil side. Under CMK 253/19, once the settlement is reached no compensation claim may be brought for that offence and a pending claim is treated as withdrawn — except for loss that could not be identified at the time or that emerged afterwards. That exception is the one to think about before signing.

Four documents decide almost every one of these cases.

• The accident report and scene sketch prepared by the traffic police.
• The fault assessment. KTK 84 lists the conduct that makes a driver primarily at fault, among it passing a red light or an officer's stop signal, rear-end collision, entering the lane used by oncoming traffic, overtaking where overtaking is prohibited, performing a change of direction wrongly, straying across the lane, failing to give way at junctions, and striking a vehicle lawfully parked. Where more than one driver did one of these things, or where the accident arose from some other breach of the rules, fault ratios are set according to the regulation.
• The medical report on each injured person, which fixes whether the case sits in the first, second or third paragraph of TCK 89.
• The expert report reconstructing speed, distance and sequence, drawing on camera footage and vehicle data.

Defence starts at the fault assessment, not at the hearing. A report attributing the whole of the fault to you, or characterising your driving as conscious negligence, is an opinion. It can be met with a counter-report and with objections lodged on the file while the investigation is still open. Footage from shop and roadside cameras is overwritten within days; a written request to preserve it in the first week is worth more than any argument made in the sixth month.

KTK 81 sets out what every driver involved in an accident must do: stop at once without creating further danger, take the measures needed for traffic safety at the scene, leave the scene as it is where there are dead, injured or damage — including the evidence and marks useful in establishing responsibility — give identity, address, driving licence, registration and insurance policy details when another person involved asks for them, report the accident to the authorities, and not leave before they arrive or without their permission. In damage-only accidents where everyone agrees no officer is needed, the parties may record that in writing between themselves and leave.

Testing is not optional after an injury accident. Under KTK 48, a driver involved in an accident causing injury or death, or in a damage-only accident attended by the police, must undergo examination. A driver who objects to the device, or does not allow it to be used, is taken to a forensic medicine institution, a forensic physician or a Ministry of Health facility, and blood, saliva or urine samples are taken.

• Over 0.50 promille in a private car: 25,000 lira administrative fine and the driving licence taken for six months. For vehicles other than private cars, the threshold is 0.21 promille.
• A second occasion within the preceding five years: 50,000 lira and the licence taken for two years. A third or further occasion: 150,000 lira and five years each time.
• Over 1.00 promille: TCK 179/3 applies as well — six months to two years' imprisonment for driving while not in a condition to drive safely.
• Where a driver above 0.50 promille in a private car, or above 0.20 promille in any other vehicle, causes an accident, the relevant provisions of the Criminal Code apply in addition.
• Refusing measurement: 150,000 lira and the licence taken for five years.
• Narcotic or stimulant substances detected: 150,000 lira, the licence cancelled, and the Criminal Code applied in addition.

Interpreter

CMK 202: where the accused or the victim does not know Turkish well enough to explain themselves, the essential points of the accusation and the defence are translated by an interpreter appointed by the court. The same applies at the investigation stage, where the interpreter is appointed by the judge or the prosecutor. Under CMK 202/4 the accused may in addition make oral submissions, on the reading of the indictment and on the final opinion, in another language they state they can express themselves better in — that interpreter is chosen by the accused and is not paid by the Treasury. Interpreters are selected from lists drawn up each year by the judicial commissions.

Consulate

CMK 95/2: where the person arrested or taken into custody is a foreign national, the consulate of their state is notified unless they object to it in writing. Notification is not representation. A consulate does not conduct the defence and does not pay for a lawyer.

Leaving Türkiye while the case runs

A prohibition on leaving the country is the first measure in the list of judicial control obligations under CMK 109/3-a. The same list includes being prohibited from driving any or certain vehicles and surrendering the driving licence against a receipt (CMK 109/3-d), reporting at set intervals (CMK 109/3-b), and lodging a security to guarantee the victim's rights (CMK 109/3-h). Judicial control is imposed instead of remand where the grounds for detention are present. Under CMK 109/6, time spent under judicial control is not deducted from a sentence, apart from treatment measures and house arrest.

Deportation

TCK 59: where a foreign national is sentenced to imprisonment, their position is reported without delay to the Ministry of the Interior, to be assessed in connection with deportation proceedings, once execution under probation or conditional release has been ordered and in every case once the sentence has been served. Law no. 6458, article 54/1-a lists those assessed as falling within TCK 59 among the foreign nationals for whom a deportation decision is taken. A conviction for negligent injury does not deport you automatically. It puts the question in front of an administration that answers it separately from the criminal court, on its own timetable.

TCK 50/4 is the provision that matters most in these files. For negligent offences, the prison sentence imposed may be converted into a judicial fine even where it is not short-term, if the other conditions are met. That provision does not apply where the offence was committed with conscious negligence. This is why the argument over conscious negligence is rarely about the label — it is about whether conversion remains available at all.

TCK 51: a sentence of two years or less may be suspended, provided the person has not previously been sentenced to more than three months' imprisonment for an intentional offence and the court forms the view that they will not offend again. Suspension may be made conditional on the victim's loss being fully made good by restitution or compensation. A supervision period of one to three years follows, and where it passes without a further intentional offence the sentence counts as executed.

CMK 231 — hükmün açıklanmasının geri bırakılması, HAGB — was rewritten in July 2026, and the older figures still in circulation are wrong. As it now stands the pronouncement of the judgment may be withheld where the sentence is two years or less, the accused has no previous conviction for an intentional offence, the court is satisfied they will not offend again, and the loss caused to the victim or to the public is fully made good. Where it cannot be paid at once, monthly instalments across the supervision period are permitted. The supervision period is five years; if it passes without a fresh intentional offence and without breach of the supervision measures, the withheld judgment is set aside and the case is dismissed. A withheld sentence cannot also be suspended or converted to an alternative sanction.

What this page cannot tell you

It cannot tell you what fault percentage the expert will assign, what the medical report will say, or whether the injured party will settle. Those three things decide the case, and none of them is visible from here. The lira figures above should not be relied on as current either — administrative fines under the traffic code are revalued, and the amount that binds you is the one written on the decision served on you. This page is written to show you which questions the outcome turns on, not to predict the outcome.