Road safety
A Leuven student must pay 120,000 euros by the court in Leuven to the relatives of a hiker who he ran over with his bicycle on a forest path in Heverlee. “It is incomprehensible that the defendant did not brake,” the judge said.
The police court in Leuven has found a Leuven student guilty of a fatal accident with a man in his seventies in November 2021. The man was walking on the university campus in Heverlee when the man in his twenties hit him with his bicycle at high speed. The victim fell and died from his injuries a day later. The young man must pay 120,000 euros in compensation to the family.
On November 28, 2021, the 71-year-old West Flemish man was walking with his wife and a friendly couple on forest paths in Heverlee, where many students pass by. Around 11:30 a.m., the four crossed paths with student JV, who was cycling in the opposite direction at about 15 miles per hour. The victim’s three companions crossed the path, blocking the cyclist’s path.
Without slowing down, he tried to pass to the left of the trio, but ended up hitting the man in his seventies head-on. He had tried to swerve as far as possible to the right to make way for the cyclist, but the cyclist chose the same side.
“Duty to slow down”
A traffic expert analyzed the camera images made of the incident and determined that JV was driving at too high a speed for the crowds that often exist on the forest paths. In the judgment, the court wrote that it was the cyclist’s duty to slow down and stop if necessary.
It was also clearly visible that JV had about five seconds and approximately 35 meters to slow down just before the accident. The traffic expert’s findings showed, to the court’s frustration, that his two brakes did indeed work. “It is incomprehensible that the defendant did not brake,” the judge said.
