Two young drivers in Cologne who killed a cyclist while having a street race have been ordered to stand for a retrial.
The motorists, who were 21 and 22 at the time, sped at 95km/h (59mph) through the city on a whim.
One of the pair hit a 19 year old female cyclist who was in a bicycle lane, who later died in hospital.
They were both convicted of negligent homicide, and driver who hit the woman was sentences to a two-year suspended sentence, and the other to less than a year’s suspended sentence.
But a higher court. the Federal Court of Justice, ruled the judgement was too lenient. and that the state court should have considered how the suspended sentences would impact the greater public’s sense of justice, according to The Local.
“There is no conviction that can bring our daughter back,” said the young woman’s father in June, adding that the suspended sentence was “like an acquittal”.
Head judge Beate Sost-Scheible ordered another hearing at the state court. The sentence for the young men could rise to up to five years in jail.
4 thoughts on “German street racers who killed cyclist ordered to stand retrial”
Hopefully some sense will
Hopefully some sense will prevail and they both get a prison sentence and their lives destroyed. Ggermany has form on not prosecuting dangerous driving from what I’ve being told/read.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
So does the UK – many of the cases don’t even get to court.
dottigirl wrote:
So does the UK – many of the cases don’t even get to court.— BehindTheBikesheds
We all know that, so what is your point with respect to what I said?
Germany has a worse road KSI rate than the UK, significantly so.
What’s your opinion on that and that German prosecuting for infractions on the road are not all that good?
If you’re goung to bring up the uk yhe least you can do is make some sort of effort to compare instead of making an obvuous but meaningless statement.
The Federal Court of Justice
The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) was happy with every part of the original judgement but the sentencing. So there won’t be a retrial in Cologne, just resentencing. Could have been explained better in the Local. There’s a better account in German here:
https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/autorennen-strafe-raser-103.html
As a cyclist/cycling lobbyist based in Germany, I generally find drivers here fairly good and courteous. 30 km/h zones could be expanded, but many cities are already somewhere around 80%. I’ve never bothered getting a camera because I really don’t have that many scary incidents. I get annoyed sometimes by drivers tailgating – but if they’re tailgating, they typically are in a position to overtake dangerously and have just about managed to stop themselves from doing so.
BUT the road safety establishment here is still firmly in the dark ages in some respects, and so are prosecutors and local authorities (the latter are responsible for minor traffic/parking offences). Fines for parking in cycle lanes etc. are ridiculously low. The gospel of @trafficwmp hasn’t made it over here properly yet. There is still too much victim blaming crap. And the training for cyclists which is available is often a bit rubbish, with excessive emphasis on keeping right and not enough emphasis on clear road positioning.
While awareness that motor vehicles are weapons is slowly growing, there is still an unfortunate trend to distinguish between “bad” people who are deliberately doing stupid, dangerous things like having a race on public roads and “ordinary” people who are “only” speeding.
Change is coming but it will take a while to percolate down.