Landroids are the deadliest traffic roads in Germany. This is clear from the report of the NGO European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) “Reducing traffic deaths on rural roads”. In 2022, 1,593 people died on rural roads. The numbers correspond to values published by the Federal Statistical Office in July 2023.
On 166,000 kilometers of rural roads, there are twice as many fatal traffic accidents as on urban roads (881 fatalities) and five times as many as on highways (314 fatalities). Although only 25 percent of accidents occur on rural roads, they account for nearly 60 percent of traffic fatalities in Germany.
“Many deaths are caused by excessive speed”
The dangers for road users on German country roads are diverse. Road standards are often very different and oncoming traffic is insufficiently separated from each other. Fatal collisions happen because of roadside trees. Agricultural use presents an additional risk: unlike highways, roads can be contaminated with leaves or animal manure. “The population underestimates the danger on country roads. Many people consider motorways more dangerous because of the higher speeds,” says Jonas Hurlin, spokesman for the German Road Safety Council (DVR).
DVR sees an urgent need to act on rural roads due to the high death toll. An interest group promoting measures to improve road safety is calling for a speed limit of 80 kilometers per hour on narrow country roads. “The narrow streets are six meters wide. As far as we know, it affects half of all rural roads,” says Hurlin. The requirement often does not apply to federal highways with well-developed medians.
“Many fatalities are caused by excessive speed,” says Hurlin. Oncoming traffic accidents and collisions with trees, “non-deforming obstacles”, as the saying goes, are rarely survivable at a speed of 100 kilometers per hour. “On many country roads, going 100km/h is practically unthinkable,” said a DVR spokesperson. A limit of 80 kilometers per hour, more guardrails on boulevards and separation of oncoming traffic can reduce the risk of death.
DVR is currently analyzing the danger situation on the B179 single lane road in Brandenburg, southeast of Berlin. As part of the investigation, camera-based real-time data of road users is recorded and possible threats are analyzed with the help of artificial intelligence. The results are used to develop safety concepts for rural roads in Germany.
The goal is to have zero road deaths in the EU by 2050
According to ETTK's current count, 10,637 people died on rural roads in all 27 EU member states in 2022. According to this, 50 percent of those killed in traffic in the EU lost their lives on rural roads. 56 percent of those killed in accidents were car passengers or drivers, 20 percent were motorcyclists, nine percent were pedestrians, and eight percent were cyclists. As the study showed, in 2022, 43 percent of all cyclist fatalities will be on rural roads. Nevertheless, European country roads were safer in 2022 than ten years earlier in 2012 (14,162 fatalities). That's a drop of about 25 percent.
The report justifies the reduction in the number by improving the security measures of the respective EU countries. The speed limit on country roads has been reduced in France, Spain and Belgium's Flanders, Sweden has invested in “2+1” roads with safety barriers, and 800 kilometers of bicycle paths have been expanded in Western Pomerania, Poland. In all the mentioned countries, the number of deaths has decreased compared to 2012. However, the EU is still far from its goal of reducing the number of road deaths to zero by 2050.