Cyclists in Ingolstadt: hit by a car while driving the wrong way!

Cyclists in Ingolstadt: hit by a car while driving the wrong way!

An accident occurred in Ingolstadt on July 14, 2025, around 5:15 p.m., which attracted the attention of traffic safety. A 45-year-old driver from the Eichstätt district drove his VW Passat on Hindenburgstrasse and turned left at the intersection with Ettinger Strasse. He overlooked a 35-year-old cyclist who was traveling in the same direction on the left-hand cycle path. However, the cyclist was “driving the wrong way” on the cycle path and was hit by the left front of the vehicle. This resulted in a fall in which the cyclist suffered minor injuries and had to be taken to a local hospital for outpatient treatment. The material damage was estimated at a total of 2000 euros, reported pfaffenhofen-today.de.

Accidents like this are not isolated. Just a short time earlier, on the same day, another incident occurred in the city: a 16-year-old cyclist was hit by a 33-year-old driver while she was driving in the wrong direction on a bike path. The driver who wanted to turn onto the road from a parking lot was uninjured, while the cyclist was injured in the face. The total damage to the car and bicycle also amounted to around 2,000 euros. Here the police are investigating the accident, as donaukurier.de reports.

Cycling traffic and accident statistics

In recent years, the number of accidents involving cyclists has reached alarming proportions. Current statistics show that there were around 27,400 cycling accidents in 2023 that did not involve any other road users. In around 6,400 of these accidents, those affected suffered serious injuries, while 147 people died. As a rule, collisions between bike and car are directly related to more serious injuries: in 2023, there were 5,112 seriously injured people and 178 deaths in such tragic encounters. These dramatic figures have been brought to light by a study by Insurers' Accident Research (UDV), which also found that single-occurrence accidents have occurred more than twice as often in the last 15 years, due to the increasing popularity of cycling, especially among older people, and an often inadequate infrastructure.

This infrastructure in particular is often the starting point of the debate. Poor road conditions, such as curbs and proximity to tram tracks, pose an increased risk for many cyclists. Almost two thirds of cyclists say that their own driving style contributed to the accident, while almost one in three people who were alone in an accident were traveling too fast for the conditions. This shows how complex the interaction in road traffic is, especially for cyclists, who are often even more at risk from Pedelecs, which are heavier and faster, as tagesschau.de reports.

Considering all these aspects, it is particularly clear that both raising awareness among road users and improving infrastructure must go hand in hand in order to increase safety on the roads. This is the only way to prevent tragic accidents in the future and to promote cycling as a safe form of transport.