Lawyer explains the law

Why many speeding cars are not auctioned off

A 19-year-old was clocked at almost 200 km/h in Kleinzell (symbolic image).(Bild: Dostal Harald)

"Toothless law" or even "completely worthless" - most users on krone.at criticize the new speeding law after the second car confiscated in Upper Austria is not put up for forced sale. A traffic expert explains what the long road to a possible forced sale looks like.

As reported, a 19-year-old was speeding along Rohrbacher Straße at almost 200 km/h in his Audi. Because the young lead-footer is the driver but not the owner of the vehicle, the Audi was only taken off the road temporarily.

This Audi A4 was only confiscated temporarily.(Bild: Horst Einöder/Flashpictures)

Three stages to the auction
What would have to happen for a car to be auctioned? "It's a long road," answers Armin Kaltenegger, head of the legal department of the Road Safety Board. The "journey" to forced sale has three stages. Firstly, the provisional confiscation, "if someone is driving 60 km/h too fast in the local area or 70 km/h outside," explains Kaltenegger. The authorities then check whether this becomes a final confiscation. The prerequisite for this is that the driver has already been speeding by 60 or 70 km/h several times, or for the first time by at least 80 km/h in urban areas or 90 km/h outside urban areas. The second condition is that the car belongs to the driver himself - this is where the 19-year-old's proceedings ended.

"Everyone is talking about it"
Third stage: "In order for the car to be auctioned, it must be declared forfeited. It has to be checked whether it is likely that the driver will speed again," says Kaltenegger. He considers the law to be effective and generally preventative, "because everyone is talking about it."