Four traffic deaths in the past week

Last week, two pedestrians and two car drivers died in traffic accidents. A tragic traffic accident occurred on Friday, January 17, 2025, in the Eisenstadt-Umwelt district, Burgenland, in which one of the pedestrians mentioned above was killed. A 72-year-old stopped his car in the first lane of the A3 after an accident with wild animals and probably wanted to remove the dead deer from the road. He called the police while holding the high-visibility vest in his other hand. At the same time, an oncoming tractor-trailer collided with the car parked in the first lane and threw it onto the pedestrian. As a result of the collision, everyone involved was thrown against the edge guard rail, with the pedestrian suffering fatal injuries. The 52-year-old driver of the tractor-trailer was uninjured in the accident. The A3 had to be closed in the direction of Vienna for more than five hours due to the accident. Three of the four road users who died had an accident at the weekend.

In the previous week, one person each died on a motorway, state road B, state road L and municipal road. There were two traffic fatalities in Lower Austria and one each in Burgenland and Styria.

The presumed main causes of the accident were inattention/distraction in two cases and inappropriate speed and a technical defect in one case each. Three fatal accidents were solo accidents.

From January 1st to 19th, 2025, there were 10 traffic deaths on the Austrian road network (provisional number). In the comparable period of 2024 there were 11 and in 2023 17.