14-year-old dies tragically in truck accident in the Braunau district

14-year-old dies tragically in truck accident in the Braunau district

On Friday evening, a tragic traffic accident occurred in the Braunau district, in which a 14-year-old girl lost his life. The incident, which took place around 5:45 p.m., was announced by the police on Saturday morning. A 42-year-old Nepalese truck driver from Croatia had lost control with his truck saddle trailer in a right-hand bend on a rain wet road and broke out to the left. He touched the rear of an oncoming car, which led to serious damage to the vehicle, especially on the left.

The girl sat in the car in the back of the car and died at the scene of the accident. The car of the car, also 42 years old, suffered serious injuries and was flown to the UKH Linz. The passenger (44 years) and two other 14-year-olds who were in the vehicle were also brought to the Rohrbach hospital with indefinite injuries.

Additional accidents in the Braunau district

The accident said was not the only emergency in the Braunau district this weekend. In the night of Sunday there were two more serious traffic accidents. In a frontal collision between two minibuses on the B148 in St. Peter am Hart, nine people were seriously injured. A large rescue operation was required, with the fire brigades of St. Peter am Hart and Haselbach used for about three hours.

Another accident occurred when a BMW driver hit a tree in Burgkirchen frontally. The health status of the 23-year-old driver is currently unknown. Here, too, the fire brigades from Neukirchen an der Enknach/Mitterberg and Burgkirchen were on site.

Road safety and statistics

The sad events in Braunau are part of a major problem in traffic safety in Europe. Every year, thousands of people in the EU lose their lives in traffic accidents or suffer serious injuries. According to statistics, between 2010 and 2020, the number of traffic fatalities in Europe fell by 36 percent, but the number remains alarming. In 2019 there were 22,800 traffic fatalities, which shows that there is still a lot to do despite the positive development.

Younger drivers are particularly affected, since 12 percent of the road fatalities were between 18 and 24 years old in 2018, although this age group is only 8 percent of the population. These take care of traffic safety throwing a shadow on the current events in the Braunau district and illustrating the need for continuous efforts to improve traffic safety in Austria and the EU as a whole. Further information on traffic accidents in Europe can be found in a report by the European Parliament on traffic accident statistics here.