From BZ/Reuters
Accidents with e-bikes are relatively more fatal than accidents with bicycles without an auxiliary motor.
The main reason for this is the age of the casualties, as the Federal Statistical Office announced on Tuesday. Because people who are injured or killed on a so-called pedelec in 2021 were on average 55 years old, but significantly younger at 41 on a non-motorised bike. Last year, 17,045 people had accidents with an e-bike, eight times more than in 2014.
However, younger people are increasingly discovering electric bikes for themselves. Of the road accident victims in 2021, half were traveling by car, 21 percent by bicycle, five percent by pedelec and less than two percent by e-scooter.
131 deaths in 2021
Last year, 131 people died on a pedelec, including 34 in a so-called single-vehicle accident. According to the data, the higher proportion of accidents without third-party fault is striking. This was the case for more than one in three accidents, compared to one in four for normal bicycles. E-bikers involved in personal injury accidents often illegally rode in the wrong direction on the sidewalk or on a one-way street. Other reasons were speeding and the influence of alcohol.
Thousands of e-scooter accidents involving personal injury
Meanwhile, the police registered 5,535 e-scooter accidents with personal injury last year. 4,882 who were traveling with an electric scooter were injured and five died. In contrast to the accident victims on pedelecs, those with e-scooters tend to be younger. 41 percent of them were under 25, the average age was 31 years. “Alcohol consumption plays a comparatively large role in accidents involving e-scooters,” said the statistics office.
In addition, accidents with electric scooters are a big city phenomenon. Accidents involving personal injury occur almost exclusively in urban areas, with around half of them occurring in 2021 in cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants.
September 2021: The driver was seriously injured in this e-scooter crash in Berlin-Mitte Photo: Spreepicture
E-scooters and other so-called small electric vehicles have been allowed to drive on German roads since June 2019. They have a similar damage balance as mopeds and mopeds, as the General Association of the German Insurance Industry (GDV) explained. “In 2020, around 180,000 insured vehicles caused 1,150 accidents in which third parties were injured,” said GDV General Manager Jörg Asmussen. “The motor liability insurers paid an average of around 3850 euros for each of these accidents.”
