Without corona measures such as lockdown and working from home, the number of fatalities in road traffic will increase again. According to preliminary figures, 44 people have died in traffic accidents since the beginning of the year until yesterday, Sunday, the Ministry of the Interior reported. In the same period in 2021, there were 27 road fatalities. By the end of February 2020 – even before the fight against the pandemic had even begun in Austria – 41 people had died in road traffic accidents.
Nine road users – four drivers, three passengers in a car, one pedestrian and one cyclist – died in seven traffic accidents in the past week alone. Three people died on February 24 in the Hollabrunn district in Lower Austria: A 32-year-old car driver from the Czech Republic wanted to cross a state road at an intersection and may have overlooked a semi-trailer truck that had priority. Three occupants of the Czech car died at the scene of the accident, and the driver was taken to a hospital.
Five people died last week on state roads and two each on motorways and federal roads. Five traffic deaths had to be reported in Lower Austria, two in Vienna and one each in Burgenland and Styria.
In one case each, the probable main causes of the accident were health impairment, insufficient safety distance, disregard of rules and prohibitions, inappropriate speed and violation of priority. According to the Ministry of the Interior, four traffic fatalities were foreign nationals. Two fatal accidents were single-vehicle accidents. One victim was not wearing a seat belt.