Following the Danish model, the police in Austria are going after crazy drivers. A BMW was towed because the speed was 1 km/h too high. Now the owner owes his father 223,000 kroner.
A 20-year-old man from Vienna has had his BMW confiscated and is now facing several financial blows.
In April 2024, he was stopped by the police when he was driving 136 km/h in a 50 zone. And even when a tolerance of 4 km/h is deducted from the measurement, the driver still falls under the country's strictest penalty under the traffic law.
If he had been just one km/h slower, the police in Austria could not have done anything but give the young man a warning. But because Austria, following the Danish example, introduced a law on reckless driving in March this year, the state has now confiscated the car.
This is what Bild writes.
Austrian law allows the police to initially seize the car and keep it locked up until the case has been heard in court. The law comes into effect as soon as the speed is exceeded by more than 80 km/h in urban areas. In Denmark, the tolerance is 'only' 50 km/h on tight stretches.
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The court in Vienna ruled against the 20-year-old last week. And the young man must now finally say goodbye to the car for which he had borrowed 223,000 kroner.
The young driver must settle the large sum of money with his father. He must also pay a fine of 12,000 Danish kroner. He must also cough up up to 4,850 DKK because part of the sentence conditions is more driving lessons with a driving instructor.
The young man must also pay the police 82 DKK every single day for storing the car. He must do this until the car is sold.
The 20-year-old is far from the only crazy driver in Austria. Since the law came into force, 133 vehicles have been confiscated. Most recently, a Peugeot 208 from 2018 was sold for 50,000 DKK at auction.
A state traffic safety fund received 70 percent of the amount, while the state took the rest. In another case, a Volkswagen Passat owner had to give up both his keys and his driving license when he was measured for driving 198 km/h in a 100 km/h zone. However, on the first day of the law, a driver fell right into the trap. Read more about it here.
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