Car racers can also be prosecuted in the future for so-called solo races without an adversary.
The provision, which was added to the Criminal Code in 2017, is compatible with the Basic Law, the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe announced on Tuesday.
The norm is sufficiently specific.
Furthermore, “community protection concerns” outweigh the impact on freedom of action here.
Paragraph 315d punishes the organization of prohibited races and participation in them.
Anyone who “drives a motor vehicle at an inappropriate speed and grossly contrary to traffic and recklessly moves in order to achieve the highest possible speed” is also liable to prosecution.
The District Court of Villingen-Schwenningen considered this part of the provision to be too vague and initiated the review in Karlsruhe.
This court had dealt with the case of a man who was under drugs and without a driver's license in 2019.
In order to avoid a traffic check, he had driven through towns and crossings at 80 to 100 kilometers per hour before the police could stop him.
Nobody got hurt.
The court had reservations about allowing an indictment under Section 315d.
It considered the part on the so-called solo races to be too vague and therefore unconstitutional.
Because penal regulations must always be formulated so clearly that everyone can clearly see whether they are doing something forbidden.
The district court saw this principle violated and therefore turned on the Federal Constitutional Court.