Traffic accidents claimed 2,832 lives on Germany's roads in 2025, an increase of 62 deaths from the previous year, according to new figures from the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden. On average, eight people died and more than 1,000 were injured every single day, with excessive or inappropriate speed remaining the leading cause of fatal crashes across the country.
The number of people injured in road traffic also rose in 2025, reaching around 371,000, an increase of 1.7 percent compared with the previous year. Of these, 322,000 suffered minor injuries and around 49,200 were seriously injured. The number of seriously injured people fell to its lowest level since separate recording of serious and minor injuries began in 1991.
The number of accidents in which at least one person involved had been drinking alcohol stood at 34,800 last year, slightly below the previous year's figure. On average, an alcohol-related accident occurred every 15 minutes.
A child was injured in a traffic accident every 18 minutes on average. In 2025, 74 children under the age of 15 died as a result of a traffic accident, compared with 53 the previous year. The number of injured children stood at around 29,200 in 2025, an increase of 7.3 percent compared with the previous year.
The total number of accidents recorded by police in Germany stood at around 2.52 million in 2025, slightly above the 2024 level of 2.51 million. In most cases, the accidents involved only property damage. Viewed over the long term, however, the number of road traffic casualties has fallen sharply. In 1995, for example, around 9,500 people were killed and more than 500,000 injured in traffic accidents.
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