Munkkivuori - Huopalahdentie Accident

Huopalahdentie Accident

The Court of Appeal did not change the sentence of the Huopalahdentie road killer

"The Court of Appeal did not change the sentence of the man who ran over a girl by a car on Huopalahdentie road. The Helsinki Court of Appeal did not alter the 18 months prison sentence without chance of parole adjudged by the district court more than a year ago. The fatal accident took place on Huopalahdentie on August 2002, when a man in his thirties disregarded the instructions of a red traffic light. The girl run over on a pedestrian crossing was killed. The parents of the girl demanded to raise the sentence to two years. The man who drove the car demanded to commute the verdict issued by the district court. The man denied explicitly running a red light but the Court of Appeal stated that it was substantiated that the lights had been red at least five seconds at the moment the man crossed the pedestrian crossing. There was a 50 km/h speed limit at the site of the incident. The man agreed in the Court of Appeal that the speed of the vehicle he was driving was so high that he would not have been able to stop the car before the junction."

— Helsingin Sanomat, 21 May 2004. Translated from Finnish language.

On a clear summer day in 13 August 2002, a nine year old girl crossing Huopalahdentie road in a pedestrian crossing was run over by a car and killed. The girl and her seven-year-old friend were reportedly on their way from a bookstore in the shopping center. They had been shopping for school equipment for the next day that was to be the first school day of the semester. A male driver of a black tuned Audi S3 Quattro car, a 32 year old CEO, was driving in the left lane when he approached the intersection that the girls were crossing. A stationary car was waiting to turn right, towards the shopping center, on the right lane. This car blocked the Audi driver's view on the pedestrian crossing leaving the driver unaware of the little girl walking behind the stationary car. As a result of the impact the girl was thrown 20 metres (66 ft) to the middle of the intersection and died regardless of the first aid given by the ambulance personnel. The coordinates of the accident scene are 60°12′18.71″N 24°52′49.66″E / 60.2051972°N 24.8804611°E / 60.2051972; 24.8804611 (Huopalahdentie accident, 13 August 2002).

The speed limit of Huopalahdentie road was reduced from 50 km/h (31 mph) to 40 km/h (25 mph) two days after the incident. An idea to build a pedestrian under passage to Huopalahdentie road had been around quite a while but abandoned due to expected high construction costs, 1,2M€. The unfortunate events of 2002 actuated the construction project. The project was boosted by the fact that a similar accident took place on Huopalahdentie road almost four years earlier. In this accident, an eight year old girl was lethally run over by a bus. The bus driver admitted right away that he had disrespected the red light.

The 2002 accident increased public awareness of irresponsible driving and gave birth to Internet and newspaper discussion on loosened traffic discipline in Finland. The residents of the neighbourhood organized a demonstration by Huopalahdentie road and set off a nation-wide traffic campaign named "Pysähdy ajoissa - Stanna i tid" ("Stop in time"). The campaign was joined by Liikenneturva and Yleisradio and was awarded the best traffic safety act of the year. The pedestrian under passage from Niemenmäki to the shopping center was completed in 2008. It eliminates the need to cross over the heavily trafficked Huopalahdentie road and thus increases road safety of pedestrians.

Soon after the tragedy, newspapers published news about the company the driver was working for. It turned out that the company was the importer and a reseller of illegal street racing movies called Getaway in Stockholm and that one copy of the series was found from the glove compartment of the Audi involved in the accident. In a later interview the Audi driver claimed that the videocassettes were for retail and that he himself did not own the copy found from the glove compartment. He was found guilty of manslaughter and reckless driving. The Court of Appeal concluded that he had failed to stop for a red light but the court could not prove that the driver had been speeding. The driver himself, however, claimed that he had been running an amber light although according to the eyewitnesses he was running a red light and speeding. The driver was sentenced to jail for a year and a half, and his driver's license was revoked until the end of August 2004. As a first-timer, he had to serve only half of the sentence i.e. nine months.