One dead and nine seriously injured in accident with test vehicle
Four rescue helicopters and 80 firefighters were deployed: in an accident on the B28 in the Reutlingen district, a young man died and several people were seriously injured and taken to hospital.
A test vehicle with modern assistance systems was involved in a serious accident with one fatality and nine seriously injured on the B28 in Baden-Württemberg. Whether or not the vehicle was driven by the 43-year-old driver is the subject of investigation and is currently unknown, a police spokesman said Tuesday. The cause of the accident is reportedly unclear.
The 43-year-old was driving an autonomous e-test vehicle near Römerstein in the Reutlingen district on Monday afternoon, according to police. In a curve, the car came for as yet unclear reasons on the oncoming lane and struck there an oncoming car. The 70-year-old driver subsequently crashed his car head-on into another car. This car left the road and immediately started to burn.
In addition, the test car reportedly crashed head-on into another car. The 33-year-old passenger of the car suffered fatal injuries as a result of the violent impact.
Traffic police Tübingen and expert investigate
In the test car of the 43-year-old were still two men aged 31 and 47 years, as well as a 42-year-old woman and a one and a half year old child, according to police. According to the report, they were seriously injured - as were other people involved in the accident - and taken to hospitals.
The car manufacturer BMW contradicted on Tuesday the information of the police, according to which it was with the accident car "an autonomous E test vehicle". A spokesman for the Munich-based company said, "The vehicle has Level 2 driver assistance systems, which are already installed in production vehicles today and support the driver on request. With Level 2 vehicles, the driver always remains in charge as a matter of principle."
Only in highly automated vehicles from Level 3 would the driver be allowed to delegate driving completely to the vehicle under certain conditions. A police spokesman did not comment on this when asked.
The investigation into the accident has been taken over by the Tübingen traffic police together with an expert. The rescue service was on the scene with four rescue helicopters and ten ambulances, among others. In addition, 80 firefighters with 15 emergency vehicles were deployed. As a result of the accident, the federal highway 28 was fully closed for several hours. Police estimate the damage to the vehicles involved at around 180,000 euros.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this article stated that the accident involved an autonomous vehicle. Following a statement from BMW, we have changed the wording. In addition, the gender of the 70-year-old has been corrected.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)