The stricter requirements for the safety equipment of trucks apparently have an effect: The number of accidents with trucks has decreased in recent years.
The number of road traffic accidents caused by trucks has decreased over the past five years. According to statistics from the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt), trucks and tractor units were the main cause of crashes in 2015 cases in 19.260. In the following years there was a continuous reduction; In 2019, the police registered 17.641 cases. Around 9.500 of the accidents took place in urban areas, almost 4.000 each on motorways and country roads. The annual mileage of trucks on German roads has increased in the same period, most recently at around 87 billion kilometers.
One of the reasons for the improved accident record is probably the obligation to install assistance systems. ESP anti-skid protection has been mandatory for new vehicles since 2014, and lane departure warning systems and emergency braking systems have been mandatory in many classes since 2015. In the future, blind spot detectors are also to become standard equipment.
Over the years, the most frequent cause of accidents, accounting for almost a quarter of all cases, was too little distance from the vehicle in front. Almost 20 percent were errors when turning, turning or maneuvering, and 13 percent were injuries to right of way. Too high a speed played the main role in around 10 percent of the cases.