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Fewer traffic fatalities, but more bicycle accidents
The number of road fatalities in Germany is falling continuously, but the number of bicycle accidents has risen by twelve percent in the past twelve years. This warning…ild advises motorists in Moers about cyclists before turning.
Source: picture-alliance / ZB / dpa
There have never been fewer road fatalities than in 2009, but the number of bicycle accidents is steadily increasing. Children are particularly at risk.
D.he number of bicycle accidents on the road has increased by twelve percent in the past twelve years. As the Auto Club Europa (ACE) now reports, 82,520 cyclists were involved in accidents with personal injury last year, which makes up around 14 percent of all road traffic injuries.
The proportion of serious bicycle accidents among children is relatively high: every third boy under the age of 15 who has been fatally injured in road traffic was on a bicycle. Most of the injured were in the age group between 45 and 55 years. Men were more likely to be involved in serious accidents. Pensioners are particularly dangerous – every second person who died on a bicycle was over 65 years old.
Around 42 percent of serious accidents were caused by the cyclists themselves: the most frequent cause is incorrect use of the road (36%), followed by wrong turns (16.2%) and failure to give way (14.5%). The number of intoxicated cyclists is disproportionately high: every eighth cyclist who was involved in an accident in 2009 was drunk or had used other intoxicants. For comparison: in car accidents every 22nd was caused by the influence of alcohol.
There are major differences in the regional distribution of accidents: Cyclists were particularly often injured in the north-west of Germany: In Bremen, 187 cyclists per 100,000 inhabitants were injured or killed, in Berlin the figure was 155. Well above the German average of 97 per 100,000 inhabitants the number of victims was also in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein.
The risk of being involved in a serious traffic accident was lower for cyclists in Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse (64 each), Thuringia (56) and Saarland (51). There the risk of being damaged by bike is less than a third as great as in Bremen.
The total number of road deaths fell further in 2009 to 4152 – for the 18th year in a row. The highest number of 21,332 deaths was reached in 1970 – at the beginning of the 1990s there was a slight increase due to the reunification of Germany, since then the number has been falling continuously.
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