Fewer traffic accidents in the corona crisis

Carola Felchner is a freelance writer in the medical department and a certified training and nutrition advisor. She worked for various specialist magazines and online portals before becoming a freelance journalist in 2015. Before starting her internship, she studied translation and interpreting in Kempten and Munich.

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Working in the home office and exit restrictions not only affect the infection rate with Sars-CoV-2. Many cars have stayed in the garage in the past few weeks. This has significantly reduced the number of traffic accidents. This is borne out by figures from car insurers, air kickers and the police.

Fewer damage reports

Since the measures imposed to prevent the further spread of the new type of coronavirus Sars-CoV-2, motor vehicle insurance companies have recorded fewer damage reports after accidents. At the R + V insurance group, the number of vehicle damage claims fell by 20 percent in April compared to the same month last year.

The Huk-Coburg-Versicherung announced that due to the exit restrictions and the resulting decrease in traffic, it is currently registering significantly fewer claims in the motor vehicle insurance. Allianz insurance also reported a significant decrease in traffic accidents.

The DEVK insurance was also reported less damage from mid-March to the end of April, as a spokeswoman said. The number of reported accidents with personal injuries has decreased significantly. Since the most recent easing, the number of accidents has increased slightly again.

Fewer emergency operations

The ADAC air rescuers were involved in traffic accidents around 1300 times from January to the beginning of May, as a spokesman said. That was around 200 missions less than in the same period last year - a decrease of almost 15 percent.

The DRF-Luftrettung also recorded a decrease in emergency operations due to traffic accidents in April: the rescuers moved out 317 times nationwide, as a spokeswoman said. In April 2019 there were 373 missions. In particular, there was a decrease of around 44 percent in car accidents and pedestrian accidents in April compared to the same month last year, and in motorcycle and moped accidents by around 21 percent. The proportion of bicycle accidents, however, increased by 75 percent compared to April last year, as it was said.

More traffic jams

Overall, there was less going on on the streets of Germany from mid-March to the end of April, as data from ADAC show. Since the end of April, however, more vehicles have been on the road again: the number of traffic jams has increased compared to the end of March. While the experts counted 467 traffic jams on the highways on the last Monday in March, for example, it was 905 on the last Monday in April. Before that, the number of traffic jams and the length of each traffic jam had decreased significantly with the start of the restrictions in mid-March.

Less traffic

Police reports from some regions of Germany also show that traffic decreased overall. During the strict Corona restrictions, the streets in Bavaria were significantly emptier than usual. There were fewer accidents, both with sheet metal damage and with personal injury, according to the Bavarian Ministry of Transport. According to the police, there were around 16,400 traffic accidents in Brandenburg between January and March - around 2000 fewer than in the same period last year. In Hesse, too, private vehicle traffic on the autobahns had decreased significantly, as the State Criminal Police Office in Wiesbaden said. (caf / dpa)

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