In the first half of the year, 184 people died in road traffic accidents, reported the VCÖ and ÖAMTC based on data from the Ministry of the Interior and Statistics Austria. This means that there were almost as many deaths as in the last two years before Corona, after which lockdowns, travel restrictions and working from home caused the numbers to drop (2021: 151 and 2020: 153).
In the first six months of 2019, i.e. before the Covid crisis, 196 people lost their lives on Austria’s roads; in the first half of 2018, 197 road deaths were counted. In 2017, on the other hand, the number of 170 fatalities had already been significantly lower.
VCÖ spokesman Christian Gratzer recalled that the road safety target of fewer than 312 road deaths with 344 fatalities had already been missed in 2020. In the previous year the number then rose to 362. “If the development of the first half of the year continues, the number of road deaths threatens in Austria to climb to over 400 this year.”
Distraction, carelessness and too much speed
The traffic club named distraction, carelessness and excessive speed as the main causes of the accident. Mobile phones at the wheel are still a big problem, with more than 128,000 drivers being caught using them last year. “Anyone who is on the phone with their cell phone to their ear reacts as badly and slowly as an alcoholic with 0.8 per thousand. Cell phone driving is not a trivial offense, as the fine of only 50 euros suggests,” emphasized Gratzer. As in other European countries, the offense should finally be included in the notification system. Lower speed limits would also make a major contribution to more road safety – open country roads 80 instead of 100 km/h, urban areas 30 instead of 50, the VCÖ proposes.
At 36 percent, single-vehicle accidents are still the most common type of accident, analyzed the ÖAMTC, which pointed to two abnormalities in the statistics: The number of fatalities in accidents at intersections has risen to the highest value in the past ten years, said traffic engineer David Nosé. There was a significant decrease in fatal accidents caused by frontal collisions.
According to the VCÖ, in the past in the first half of the year there have already been a lower number of traffic fatalities in all federal states. Now, with 51, the most fatalities were in Lower Austria, ahead of Upper Austria (37) and Styria (36). The lowest number is in Vorarlberg (six), ahead of Burgenland (eight), Salzburg and Carinthia (ten each).
The increase in fatal traffic accidents is also related to the volume of traffic, and Nosé explained that the pre-pandemic level of 2019 has almost been reached again on motorways. In the near future, you should therefore be particularly careful: 55 percent of all traffic deaths are to be lamented in the second half of the year, a large number of them in the summer months. “When the weather is nice and on weekends, the risk of serious accidents increases.”
Source: Nachrichten
