Last year, significantly more children had an accident in Austria than in the Corona year 2021. According to the Road Safety Board (KFV), 22 children died in accidents. A total of 109,700 children between the ages of 14 and 14 were injured so badly that they required hospital treatment. This means that every five minutes a child has an accident. 75 percent of accidents occur at home and in leisure time.
At the political level, the KFV calls for concrete responsibility for the safety of children, there is currently no one responsible, so there is a risk that “no one is really responsible”, says general director Christian Schimanofsky.
“The numbers are alarming,” Schimanofsky said. In the previous year, more than 300 children were hospitalized for injuries every day and a child dies every two and a half weeks as a result of an accident. According to the KFV, 95,300 people under the age of 15 were still injured in the 2021 Corona year.
In 2022, 22 girls and boys under the age of 15 died in accidents
Accidents are among the greatest health risks for children. “While minor injuries from play and sports are part of a child’s development, those accidents where children die or become permanently injured due to a lack of safety precautions are particularly troubling,” said Schimanofsky. In 2022, 22 girls and boys under the age of 15 died in accidents. Of these, 13 children died on the road, five drowned, two died in a severe storm in Carinthia, and one child died in a tobogganing accident and one in an agricultural accident.
Ireland has the lowest child accident score
When it comes to child safety, Austria ranks tenth in the most recent EU comparison with an incidence of 18 fatally injured children per million inhabitants (Eurostat 2023; average 2017-2019, EU-27, processing KFV). Although this is below the EU average (incidence 23), it is still well above Ireland, the lowest value country.
Three-quarters of accidents occur at home and during leisure time
“We expect there will be cases of falls from windows and drownings in the next month,” Schimanofsky said. In addition to a dedicated ministry for child protection, the KFV demands an action plan with which measures to prevent child accidents are included in the government program and, above all, implemented.
As an example: in Austria, five children drowned in 2022, two this year, most recently a five-year-old girl in a thermal bath, but there is no nationwide offer of swimming courses. For many, these are not affordable – if they exist at all. In some states there is already a free offer.
Particularly high need for action in road traffic
Last year, six children died here in car accidents, four as pedestrians and one child each on a bicycle, e-scooter and moped. “The situation on the road is unbearable for children,” the expert confirmed. Cars drive too fast, the infrastructure is only intended for adults and there is no room to learn how to cycle, for example.
“Success through targeted prevention work is possible. However, the year 2019 marked a dramatic turnaround: in this year more children died in road accidents than had been the case in a long time. This negative trend was only slowed down by the corona pandemic, in 2023 the continuation of the negative trend can be clearly predicted again.
If you ask the children what they would like to see improve their quality of life and safety, they would agree: the desire for more safety on the road and safer places to play more freely is at the top of the list. wish list of all children surveyed by their parents.
Source: Krone
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