3 ms·
In the Netherlands and several other European countries, there is presumed/strict liability on the part of the automobile driver. Regardless of fault, a car dri
by anonymousab 4y ago
In the Netherlands and several other European countries, there is presumed/strict liability on the part of the automobile driver. Regardless of fault, a car driver has responsibility for any accident between their car and a bicycle. There is of course more nuance to this, but that's the basic overlying principle.
A joke I heard a few times was "If a bike fell out of the air onto a parked car, the car owner is going to court."
- 988747 4y agoWhich sounds terrible, and goes against "innocent until proven guilty" rule. Also, in some situations it gives the driver perverse incentive to finish the cyclist off (and therefore get rid of the only witness), instead of, say, calling an ambulance.
- supertrope 4y agoThere a lot of cultural bias against bicyclists already. While leaving the scene of an injury accident is a crime, murder is an extreme escalation.
- jules 4y agoNo. The maximum prison sentence in such a case would be 8, 6, or 2 months in the Netherlands, depending on how reckless the driver was (and up to 4 years if drunk). If you then kill the cyclist you're looking at a maximum of 25 years.