In 2024, 13 people have already been killed in traffic in Upper Austria

It was shortly before 7 a.m. on Thursday when a 22-year-old wanted to turn his company car onto the L1210 (Leithenbachstrasse) in Heiligenberg (Grieskirchen district). For reasons that are still unclear, he may have missed an oncoming Seat Alhambra. Any help came too late for the installer, who was thrown out of the vehicle upon impact. He died later at the accident site.

• Also read: 22-year-old died in a traffic accident in Heiligenberg

This makes it the 13th person to lose their life on a road in Upper Austria in 2024 – that’s two more people than in the first three months of the previous year. With this increase, the federal state is deviating from the nationwide trend: In Austria, the number of traffic deaths in the first quarter fell by 30 percent to a total of 53, the second lowest value of the 21st century.

Between February 26th and March 3rd, for the first time in ten years, there was a calendar week in which not a single traffic fatality was reported in Austria.

With the second quarter, “a time is now approaching in which there have been significantly more traffic accidents in the past than in the first,” says VCÖ spokesman Christian Gratzer. In the previous year, there were around 80 percent more traffic accidents in Upper Austria from April to June than from January to March, and with 23, more than twice as many traffic deaths.

The VCÖ once again reiterated its call for the widespread introduction of a speed limit of 30 km/h in local areas and a speed limit of 80 km/h on open roads. In the French city of Lyon, for example, where the speed limit has been 30 on most streets for two years, the number of accidents with serious or fatal injuries has fallen by 39 percent.