Children riding crossbikes on Reykjavík pavements at dangerous speeds are putting pedestrians at risk, according to a first-hand account published by Vísir (visir.is) following a near-miss incident in the capital last weekend.
The incident raises familiar concerns about the use of off-road motorcycles and similar motorised vehicles in urban areas — a problem that surfaces periodically in Iceland but has proved difficult to address through enforcement alone. Pavements in Reykjavík are shared by shoppers, children, and elderly pedestrians, and the presence of fast-moving bikes creates conditions that few expect to encounter on foot.
Near-miss outside Bónus highlights pavement crossbike danger
The account describes a person leaving a Bónus supermarket when a dark-coloured crossbike came within centimetres of striking them. The rider was travelling at an estimated 60 kilometres per hour on the pavement. He was a teenager, not wearing standard protective riding gear, and continued down the pavement after the near-collision — weaving through a group of friends as he went.
Sixty kilometres per hour is a speed at which a collision with a pedestrian could easily be fatal. On a public road that figure sits at or above the standard urban speed limit in Iceland. On a pavement, shared with people on foot, it represents a risk of an entirely different order.
The rider showed no sign of slowing. Reports indicate the group was gathered along the pavement, and the teenager moved through them with apparent ease — suggesting this was not an isolated or impulsive act but a routine the riders were accustomed to.
What Icelandic law says about motorised vehicles on pavements
Under Icelandic traffic law, motorised vehicles are not permitted on pavements. Crossbikes and similar off-road motorcycles are subject to the same restrictions as other motor vehicles when used in public spaces. In practice, however, enforcement depends on police being present — and in a city the size of Reykjavík, that is rarely guaranteed at the moment a violation occurs.
The Lögreglan — Iceland’s national police force — has authority to issue fines and confiscate vehicles used unlawfully in public areas, but the scattered and spontaneous nature of pavement riding makes systematic enforcement challenging. Young riders typically know the streets and can disperse quickly.
This is not a new problem in Iceland. Similar incidents have been reported in previous summers, when longer daylight hours and school holidays bring more young people onto the streets. But accounts of near-misses involving pedestrians outside busy shops suggest the behaviour is escalating, or at least becoming more visible.
A pattern that parents and authorities need to watch
What stands out in this account is the ordinariness of it. A weekend afternoon, a busy supermarket, a car park and pavement in everyday use — and a teenager on a powerful bike treating the space as a circuit. The friends gathered on the pavement were apparently unconcerned. No one intervened.
That normalisation is, in some ways, more troubling than the speed itself. When risky behaviour becomes routine within a peer group, the threshold for what feels dangerous shifts. Riders stop registering pedestrians as hazards. Bystanders stop expecting anything different.
Reykjavík’s commercial areas — around Bónus locations, Krónan, Hagkaup, and the shopping strips in Kópavogur and Hafnarfjörður — attract significant foot traffic throughout the week. Families with young children, older residents, and tourists unfamiliar with local conditions all share those pavements. A crossbike moving at 60 km/h through that environment leaves almost no margin for error.
Whether the latest wave of incidents prompts a formal response from Reykjavíkurborg or a targeted enforcement operation by Lögreglan remains to be seen — but calls for action are likely to grow if near-misses continue to be reported through the summer months.
Original source: Vísir (visir.is)
