The Interior Ministry made this assessment in a press release on Tuesday. Two road users died on Easter Sunday and three on Easter Monday. The dead were two drivers, a passenger, a pedestrian and a moped driver.
On Easter Sunday, the 86-year-old pedestrian crossed a federal highway with her husband on a walk in the Perg district within a 70 km/h limit and was hit by a 28-year-old car driver under the influence of drugs and fatally injured. The 28-year-old committed a hit-and-run, but was tracked down by the police a short time later.
In the Braunau district, a 15-year-old moped driver also died on Easter Sunday after a collision with a car.
In Styria, an elderly couple was killed by a falling tree while driving their car in Ilz (Hartberg-Fürstenfeld district) on Easter Monday. 15 minutes later, in the municipality of Breitenfeld an der Rittschein, ten kilometers away, a 59-year-old’s car collided with a tree, killing the driver.
According to the Interior Ministry, nine people died in road traffic accidents during the entire Easter week from March 25, 2024 up to and including Easter Monday. The number of traffic fatalities on the Easter weekend increased compared to previous years. From 2020 to 2022, four people died in traffic over the Easter weekend.
So far 53 traffic deaths in Austria
According to the Interior Ministry, the lowest number of victims since the statistics were introduced in 1968 was recorded with one traffic fatality in 2013 and 2023. In the most consequential year to date, 1976, there were 39 traffic fatalities over the Easter weekend.
According to preliminary figures from the Austrian Transport Club (VCÖ), 53 people died in road accidents in Austria this year in the first three months of the year. The VCÖ thus recorded a decline of 30 percent compared to the previous year. “The number of traffic deaths in the first quarter fell by almost a third this year to the second lowest value in the 21st century,” said VCÖ expert Katharina Jaschinsky. The 53 fatalities are nevertheless a reminder to implement increased road safety measures, it said.
