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The automotive supplier ZF Friedrichshafen shows with a glass truck front how modern turning assistants can work: Drivers monitor the area around the truck via monitors
Photo: Rainer Droese / localpic / IMAGO
The number of car accidents will drop significantly in the next twenty years - that's what German insurance companies expect.
The reason is the increasing spread of assistance systems.
By 2040, the number of accidents will decrease by 20 to 30 percent compared to 2019, predicts the German Insurance Association (GDV).
The claims expenditure will decrease by 19 to 25 percent.
However, the repair costs would increase somewhat - by four to six percent.
Parking assistants can reduce the number of accidents
According to the forecast, emergency braking assistants, parking assistants and maneuvering assistants have the greatest effect on motor vehicle liability claims.
Such driver assistance systems are not yet mostly in use.
"The new assistance systems make driving safer, but they are only spreading slowly and make repairs more expensive in the event of damage," said Jörg Asmussen, General Manager of the German Insurance Association.
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But assistance systems already have a measurable positive effect on the number of damage.
"We observe that there is around twenty percent less damage to vehicles with assistance systems," said Jörg Rheinländer, board member of the HUK Coburg insurance company.
It will be many years before the assistance systems completely take the steering wheel out of the driver's hands: "Autonomous driving will first establish itself in slow traffic situations," estimates Rhinelander.
"And then on motorways, where there is relatively little damage."
Fewer accidents in the pandemic year 2020
Since 1991 there have been results on the number of accidents in Germany as a whole.
At that time, the Federal Statistical Office counted 2.3 million accidents.
In 2019, that figure was almost 2.7 million.
Last year, the number of accidents fell to around 2.2 million due to the corona pandemic and the associated contact and travel restrictions.
vki / dpa