Head-on collision near Neuhofen: Seven injured in a serious accident!

Head-on collision near Neuhofen: Seven injured in a serious accident!

In a serious traffic accident on the state road L508, in the town of Hörzing, Neuhofen im Innkreis, Upper Austria, there was a head-on collision between two cars on December 21, 2025 at 1:26 p.m. The alerted Neuhofen fire department and the Kohlhof and Lohnsburg volunteer fire departments had to respond to an accident with people trapped. A total of seven people were injured in this incident, some of them seriously.

The collision occurred when an 18-year-old driver from the Ried district lost control of his vehicle and collided head-on with a full pickup truck. A 40-year-old driver from the Ried district was in the pickup, accompanied by a 41-year-old passenger. The two also had three children on board, aged 5, 6 and 7. After the collision, the engine and transmission of a vehicle were thrown into a meadow. The pickup came to a stop in a field. All occupants of the pickup truck as well as the 18-year-old and his passenger suffered injuries of an unspecified degree; two occupants of the car were trapped in their vehicle and had to be rescued.

Rescue measures

Rescue efforts included the use of hydraulic rescue equipment to open the passenger door of the severely damaged vehicle. The passenger was rescued with a spineboard and then handed over to the Red Cross. The driver of the car was stabilized before he was gently freed. An emergency medical helicopter was also deployed to assist in the rescue. The Kohlhof fire department took over the clean-up work at the accident site.

The police discovered that the 18-year-old was driving with an expired inspection sticker and did not have a driving license. An alcohol test on the 40-year-old was negative, while a test could not be carried out on the 18-year-old due to his serious injuries. These incidents lead to a critical look at road safety, particularly in relation to new drivers and compliance with regulations.

The state of road safety

The accident statistics in Germany show that road traffic as a whole remains a traveling danger zone. About 2.5 million road traffic accidents were recorded in 2024, a decrease compared to the previous year. The statement of Statista The fact that the number of road deaths in Germany fell to 2,770 highlights the ongoing efforts to improve road safety. However, the influence of human error, such as inattention and the influence of alcohol, remains one of the most common causes of accidents.

The safety measures include not only the legal regulation of road traffic, but also the infrastructure and traffic formation. The statistics on traffic accidents in Germany provides a basis for political decisions in areas such as infrastructure and traffic safety policy. Nevertheless, Vision Zero, which aims for zero traffic fatalities by 2050, is still a distant goal for many EU states, including Austria.