Weekly Check

Recently, somebody just told me that in the most cases, the bikers themselves were to blame if they get caught in an accident. In fact, they were even the ones to blame for most accidents involving cars. It was not the first time I heard this, but I never actually checked if it was true.

However, this time I went ahead and checked the data available at the German bureau of statistics. I found the table showing the involvement and wrongdoing of vehicle drivers related to accidents with personal injury (2020) on page 35.

The cake graphs above showed what I learned from the numbers. It is true that in total, bikers are more involved in accidents involving personal injury, which is not really surprising. However, most accidents are due to the vehicle driver's own wrongdoing, no matter if he/she sits in a car or on a bike.

It may feel differently if you see bikers in big cities such as Berlin. However, the mistakes seem to be distributed more evenly than we instantly suspect.

Source: https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Verkehrsunfaelle/Publikationen/Downloads-Verkehrsunfaelle/unfaelle-zweirad-5462408207004.pdf?__blob=publicationFile