Juha

This is the first that I'm aware of.

According to witnesses, car driver changed lanes abruptly, prompting a "hand signal" from a cyclist (I'm suspecting flipping the bird). At the next traffic light, the driver waited for the cyclist to pass, then crashed him from behind and sped away. Cyclist died later due to head injury.

They caught the brave individual later, he's being detained for manslaughter and hit and run, among other things.

Like I said, these are not common in Finland. There's a memorial ride planned for tomorrow (Sunday), I'm planning to participate.

Motorist suspected of manslaughter after Töölö cyclist's death | Yle Uutiset | yle.fi

--J

Chris516

I hope the driver gets the Finnish version of Life WithOut Parole.

Clyde1820

Lying in wait. Murder. Little different from breaking into a home, waiting for the owner to arrive, then taking him out. Bicycling or no, this was a planned use of ~4000 lbs of weaponry upon a person, with apparent intent (and willingness) to kill.

I hope the full weight of the law is brought to bear on this person.


Sad, that such people exist. Condolences to the folks who care about this rider, for what they must now go through.

Juha

I too hope they throw the book at him, but sadly that may not mean much around here. The police say he has no prior criminal record, a fact that will automatically reduce whatever sentence he's going to get.

Good news is, the creep has been jailed and is suspected of voluntary manslaughter (among other things), which is a very rare sight in our traffic related cases. They're usually prosecuted as negligent homicide. We'll see, they have until 13th September to prosecute.

--J

Chris516

That is good to hear.

Shimagnolo

If the driver indeed waited for the cyclist, then rammed him, it sounds like premeditated murder.

Looigi

...only if they can prove an intent to kill. "I hit the cyclist with my car and ran him over a couple of times, but I didn't think it'd kill him. I just wanted to teach him a lesson."

kickstart

Second degree murder seems to be a more appropriate definition of this crime.

TheManShow

Road rage incident that ended very badly.

Juha

Exactly. In this case, they can hopefully prove an intent to hit the cyclist, which fits the voluntary manslaughter definition.

The memorial ride was today, about 850 cyclists participated. We rode on the main street, as a police escorted convoy, from city center to the intersection where a ghost bike had been placed earlier. There were several uniformed cycle policemen riding back and forth along the convoy, which was a nice touch. The theme of the ride was to oppose road rage.

Quite fittingly, one bus driver either had not gotten the memo or got fed up waiting for the street to be opened for regular traffic. He turned from a side street, drove alongside of the convoy for a block or so (on tram tracks because the main street lanes were closed, duh) and with considerable speed, then slowed down at the next intersection and tried to gradually push his way through the convoy. A handful of cyclists went down (no injuries), bus driver got out of the vehicle, words were exchanged, bikes were thrown around, keys from the bus were grabbed, key-grabbing cyclist was shoved etc. The police were close by, so the situation didn't escalate any further. There will be legal consequences.

The 850 of us couldn't have emphasized the point of - or the need for - the ride better than that one bus driver did.

--J

B. Carfree

Stateside, other than NY, I believe the difference between first degree and second degree is premeditation. Considering the time between the initial, motorist-caused incident and the killing, I would guess that this was sufficient time to call this one premeditated as opposed to some sort of heat of the moment. Of course, since his weapon was a car, had this happened in the US I would expect it to result in only a careless driving citation.

seeker333

Bus knocks down cycling safety demonstrators in Helsinki | Yle Uutiset | yle.fi

kickstart

Going by standard definitions in legal dictionaries, second degree seems to be the most accurate.

"a non-premeditated killing, resulting from an assault in which death of the victim was a distinct possibility. Second degree murder is different from First Degree Murder which is a premeditated, intentional killing, or results from a vicious crime such as arson, ****, or armed robbery."


Are there documented cases where a motorist has only been charged careless driving for intentionally running down and killing a cyclist other than as part of a plea bargain?