The man who killed on Sunday by 6 clock five people and himself died was 20 years old. He came out of the room Offenburg in Baden and sat alone in his white BMW when he returned to the police in Lahr in the wrong direction on the highway ascended the fifth There was some fog.
Motorists reported the wrong way at the police headquarters in Offenburg, the police forwarded the information more promptly - the lives of five people they could not save yet.
Not five minutes after the first report of 20-year-old raced near the front parking lot Unditz in a minivan to a 30-year-old drew from Offenburg. Both drivers were killed instantly The impact was so violent that the engine block of the large-capacity car was thrown out.
Vans also died in the wreck of a 23-year-old and a 36-year-old and two men aged 26 and 27 years. All four are from the space Emmendingen.
Immediately after the collision, a defaulting driver stopped her car on the shoulder, apparently to provide counsel. It was overlooked by a subsequent car and rolled over. The 37-year-old suffered serious injuries here, as the police said. She is now out of danger. To the accident sequence based on current status of the investigation two other cars were involved, whose passengers were slightly injured.
"The emergency services are offered an awful picture," said the police spokesman. The accident site was littered with debris and wreckage.
Coroner, experts and staff of the prosecution rushed to the scene to reconstruct the accident and its cause. Fire Department, the Agency for Technical Relief (THW) and emergency services were in large scale operation. The highway between Offenburg and Lahr was closed until early afternoon.
On average 20 people a year die due to wrong-way driver
Suicidal intent, drugs, test of courage, disorientation: The reasons why motorists take the wrong ramp of a highway or operating on main roads into oncoming traffic may have different causes. The Auto Club Europa (ACE) points out that some driveways are simply too poorly signposted.
According to accident research, these cases are statistically rare. By wrong-way driver on average 20 people a year die. But in recent weeks it came to more severe accidents involving wrong-way drivers, so that this average has been exceeded this year alone in the months of October and November - although, according to the ADAC far there is no reliable evidence for the assumption that Geisterfahrer frequently in Autumn road.
Recently had a wrong-way driver in Sauerland - even on an early Sunday morning - caused an accident with five dead: He had gone according to the police in suicidal intent on the highway near Meschede into oncoming traffic and had four more people lost their lives in.
In Rhineland-Palatinate in mid-October were killed in a wrong-way driver accident, a father and two of his children. In Bavaria a few days earlier, five people were killed. Back then, a mentally ill woman had probably caused the accident, as she turned into oncoming traffic.
In early November came on the Highway 6 near Heilbronn a father and his three children were killed. End of October, there were on the A5 near Baden-Baden in a serious accident with four Toten.Die victims were two parents and their two children.
According to the Federal Ministry of Transport, there in about 1700 to 2000 messages that a wrong-way driver on the road - but it also includes mild runny incidents, errors and telephone jokes. Typically report other motorists continue the wrong way the police or radio stations. According to ADAC in Germany even 2800 cases were reported, including 2,000 on highways: Three percent of fatal accidents on motorways are caused by wrong-way drivers accordingly.
Most involuntary, so-called ghost tours go traffic researchers, from actually lightly, because a wrong-way driver who has realized his mistake, generally doing everything to avoid accidents as quickly as possible and to find a proper track.
But who seeks death holds, not the rules. Are relatively rare and the advice of such cases, the requirements for protective measures are, however, large: The German police union is pushing for the use of special-claws in the asphalt pavement. They are designed so that they damage already on the motorway only the tires of the wrong-way driver and stop him thus to the onward journey.
