A local court has ruled that police had the authority to seize the car driven by a 20-year-old man from Bærum involved in illegal racing on the E18 motorway between Oslo and Drammen. He also faces 60 days in jail and has had his driver’s license revoked for 38 months.
“We’re hoping to send a strong signal to anyone else thinking about driving like he did,” prosecutor Haldis Framstad Skaare told state broadcaster NRK on Tuesday. “This is very hazardous driving. We know this wasn’t the first such illegal racing and we want to halt it.”
The young man had, together with accomplices, managed to block off a section of the busy highway on a Friday evening in early June for their impromptu race that attracted spectators to one of the E18’s overpasses in Lier. When police arrived, he tried to escape, setting off a lengthy car chase at speeds of more than 200 kilometers an hour (120mph) that ended in a field father south at Sande in Vestfold and Telemark.
The 20-year-old’s defense attorney plans to appeal the seizure of the car, a BMW. “He’s ready to take his punishment but doesn’t think it should apply to the car,” his lawyer told NRK. “It can’t just be used to send signals to the (racing) milieu.”
NewsinEnglish.no staff
