In 2023, rural roads were clearly the most dangerous routes for car and motorcycle drivers. Narrower than highways, their straight layout unfortunately encourages drivers to ignore the speed limit. Some overtaking maneuvers were abruptly ended in curves by unpredictable oncoming traffic. Excessive speed or driving that was not adapted to the weather conditions was the cause of 33 percent of accidents, or 535 of the fatalities.
Pedestrians on rural roads should continue to wear highly visible clothing, even in the dark, and walk against the flow of traffic. It is not known how often cyclists, who were not actually involved, were hit by cars passing too close. But let’s take a closer look at the figures.
The fact that most traffic fatalities, 58 percent, occurred on rural roads is based on an interesting fact. The rate of accidents with personal injury on rural roads was only 24 percent. This brought the number of accidents involving personal injury to around 70,000, an increase of 1.2 percent over the previous year.
Things are not getting any quieter on German highways, either – quite the contrary. In 2023, free travel for free citizens ended in 19,000 cases with at least one person injured. This represented an increase of 7.2 percent over the previous year. A general speed limit is out of the question for freedom-loving Germans. However, it is possible that some of the 43 percent of those who died on the motorway would still be alive today. This figure reflects the number of accidents resulting from excessive speed. In absolute terms, 130 of the 215 motorway fatalities were driving too fast or were killed by vehicles traveling too fast. Looking at the figures in more detail, the number of motorway fatalities increases by a further 74 people who were not traveling in cars but in trucks, semi-trucks, or other tractors.
One last word on bicycles as a means of transport. Their popularity is growing steadily, boosted by e-bikes and pedelecs. This fits in with the fact that although the number of accident victims has fallen by 22.2 percent since 2010, the number of cyclists killed has risen by 17.1 percent during this period.
The clear front-runners in accidents involving personal injury were accidents in built-up areas. The police counted 203,000 collisions involving personal injury here in 2020, primarily involving pedestrians. This means that local authorities account for around 70 percent of these accidents. And it is not surprising that pedestrians top the sad statistics here. Unfortunately, Destatis, which provides the data, does not specify whether this includes, for example, people who were hit by a train while crossing tram tracks, or whether only accidents involving cars, motorcycles, scooters, and, where applicable, bicycles were counted.
(Source: Destatis)
