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CRIME

Drunken German cyclists could face driving ban

If you thought cycling home after the pub was a good idea, think again. A German court ruled on Wednesday that inebriated cyclists could forfeit their right to drive a car.

Published: 22 May 2008 08:12 CEST
Drunken German cyclists could face driving ban
Maybe just get loaded at home instead. Photo: DPA

The country’s highest administrative court was ruling on the case of a man near Berlin whose licence was taken away after he was caught cycling with a blood-alcohol level four times the legal limit.

Medical tests found he was a heavy drinker and probably often in no state to cope with road hazards. The council appealed when a local court overruled the decision to revoke his licence.

Meanwhile other offences now look set to attract significantly stiffer sentences after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet approved a raft of new measures aimed at reducing road deaths. A government spokesman confirmed that drink drivers could from 2009 face fines of up to €3,000 ($4,720), double the current maximum, and a penalty of €2,000 for jumping a red light.

The tougher laws, which also include higher fines for speeding, still have to be approved by parliament.

No change is planned to the lack of speed limit on many parts of the Autobahn.

CRIME

Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

A 17-year-old has turned himself in to police in Germany after an attack on a lawmaker that the country's leaders decried as a threat to democracy.

Published: 5 May 2024 12:52 CEST
Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

The teenager reported to police in the eastern city of Dresden early Sunday morning and said he was “the perpetrator who had knocked down the SPD politician”, police said in a statement.

Matthias Ecke, 41, European parliament lawmaker for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was set upon by four attackers as he put up EU election posters in Dresden on Friday night, according to police.

Ecke was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said.

Scholz on Saturday condemned the attack as a threat to democracy.

“We must never accept such acts of violence,” he said.

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s European election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police said a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had been “punched” and “kicked” earlier in the evening on the same Dresden street.

Last week two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and another was surrounded by dozens of demonstrators in her car in the east of the country.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

A group of activists against the far right has called for demonstrations against the attack on Ecke in Dresden and Berlin on Sunday, Der Spiegel magazine said.

According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is planning to call a special conference with Germany’s regional interior ministers next week to address violence against politicians.

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