Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - According to the Düsseldorf Ministry of the Interior, poor road conditions do not play a major role in traffic accidents on North Rhine-Westphalian state roads. In comparison to other causes of accidents, this is negligible, the ministry said in a response to an AfD request published on Wednesday.
When presenting the traffic accident statistics for 2021, NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) highlighted a sharp increase in e-scooter accidents - especially in connection with alcohol - a growing number of cell phone violations at the wheel and more Deaths involving drugs. In addition, the Minister of the Interior had stated: "Grass leads to the hospital, to the cemetery or to prison."
For 2022, there are only provisional accident figures on state roads in NRW up to and including October. Accordingly, in the first ten months of last year, road conditions played a role in a total of 877 accidents involving personal injury - such as snow and ice, dirt or damage to the road surface. According to the list, three of the 1,090 people who died under such circumstances were killed, 191 were seriously injured and 896 were slightly injured. Comparative figures from previous years show no notable changes.
In total, 369 people were killed and almost 63,700 injured on the NRW state roads in the first ten months of 2022. Reul left it open whether the overall balance in 2022 could be expected to increase again in the number of road deaths and injuries.
For 2021, Reul reported a record low since accident statistics began in 1953 with 425 road deaths a year ago. However, the Federal Statistical Office had forecast in December, based on the data collected up to that point, that the number of road deaths in Germany in 2022 would probably increase by around nine percent after the historic low in the previous year. According to provisional figures from IT.NRW, there were 51,719 accidents involving personal injury in NRW up to and including October 2022 (entire year 2021: 54,339).
