Norwegian pavement cyclist faces jail for killing another pavement rider

There is a great deal of information left out of this article...

The cyclist was charged with manslaughter. What the court found is that he was guilty of negligence, and violation of the highway code, not manslaughter. He was sentenced with 60 days (30 to be served), probation, and 120000 NOK (about £12500) damages, to be paid to the victim's family.

Stick this in google translate (other translators are available)
http://www.dagbladet.no/2013/09/18/nyheter/sykkelulykke/innenriks/trafik...

p.s. Pavement cycling is legal in Norway.

Lot of knee-jerks hereabouts. We're hot and bothered in the UK about people sharing the pavement where necessary. "Get back into the path of the lorries and buses, pedal cyclists!" "Pavement cyclist", indeed. People more knowledgeable than us, in a society that seems pretty well-balanced (Norway), reckon 30 days is about right. The instant expert ramblings of us foreigners are as irrelevant as our weird obsessions with pavement sharing and helmet guilt and rlj and whatever else. Apologies but I'm just back from a nicer (foreign) city environment where they encourage cycling and no-one thinks about cycling in these accusatory terms.

30 days just sounds pointless. Either stand behind your claim of fault and therefore administer a real sentence or claim it was simply an accident and leave the rider open to civil litigation

Also the whole justice system in Norway seems to lean heavily on restorative justice. The result of this is that the reoffending rate is very low. They use prison for rehabilitation rather than punishment. Meanwhile our phsyc here in the UK is to lock them up and throw away the key. Somehow I don't think this fellah will cycle on the pavement and if he does it will be at a snails pace.

On the face of it the 30 day sentence seems lenient, however there are a number of factors to consider:

• The Norwegian justice system is different to England and Wales. Whilst we may see a 30 day sentence as lenient it may be viewed very differently by Norwegians.
• He has pleaded guilty and expressed remorse for his actions, which is typically not seen in other cases where a common defense is 'didn't see you, not my fault'.
• He was cycling on the pavement to avoid a busy, potentially unsafe, road. A lack of cycling infrastructure could be a mitigating factor.
• Although he is responsible for his actions, the consequences of his actions are tragically unfortunate.

Agree that the jail tariff is too lenient but the life tariff to carry is absolute.

It emphasises that a figure emerging from reviews on footway cycling is that the greatest risk is that of colliding with another cyclist riding on the footway, and crashing on a footway is 4-8 times more likely than crashing on a carriageway.

Only 30 days?!? That seems a V E R Y cheap price for a life...whether intentional or not.

Too lenient in my opinion.

Seems incredibly lenient to me, though I know that is the Norwegian way.
If a motorist drove like a cock and killed someone we'd be calling for blood. And certainly wouldn't be saying he could just as easily have killed himself.
People need to be responsible for their actions. It's a 35 year old, not a child.

sounds like a terrible unfortunate accident - it could just as easily have been himself who ended up under the bus