A 48-year-old man who ran down a pedestrian in Oslo last fall while riding an electric scooter at high speed has been sentenced to 18 days in prison and lost his driver’s license for a year. It’s the first case of its kind after years of complaints about the popular scooters.
The woman he hit suffered serious head injuries and remains on partial sick leave. She was crossing the busy street called Bygdøy allé in Oslo’s fashionable Frogner district when he ran into her on his scooter that had been illegally altered to reach speeds of nearly 50kph (30mph).
“There is no doubt that he was operating the scooter in clear violation of responsible behaviour in traffic,” Oslo County Court Judge Ole Kristen Øverberg wrote in his verdict. The defendant had admitted seeing the woman in the street but he didn’t want to brake hard for fear of being thrown off the scooter himself. The verdict also notes that he didn’t dare swerve farther out in the street for fear of being hit by a car, so he crashed into the woman instead.
His defense attorney called the verdict “very strict” and noted that it equated operating an el-scooter with driving a car. The woman he hit told state broadcaster NRK that the verdict can be a 2warning to everyone to think twice before jumping on a scooter and riding it at high speed.” The man has also agreed to pay compensation and damages to her, according to NRK.
newsinenglish.no staff
