As people increasingly use bicycles-fueled by the popularity of e-bikes-for daily transportation, the statistics concerning accidents reflect this trend. Preliminary results reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) indicate that, in the year 2025, one in six (16.4%) fatalities on German roads involved a cyclist.
Overall, 462 cyclists died in accidents last year. Among those fatalities, 217 were riding pedelecs (commonly referred to as e-bikes). This represents a 3.8% increase in the total number of cyclist deaths compared to the previous year. Furthermore, the number of deaths involving all cyclists has risen by 20.6% since 2015. This surge is largely attributed to the increasing number of deaths among pedelec riders (195 in 2024, compared to 36 deaths involving cyclists in 2015).
In broader terms, the total number of road fatalities last year was 1.8% higher than in 2024, yet it decreased by 18.4% compared to 2015.
A clear risk factor identified is age: older riders are particularly vulnerable. Of the cyclists involved in fatal accidents in 2025, 61.5% were aged 65 or older. This percentage was 56.3% for those on traditional, non-motorized bicycles, but it jumped to 67.3% for pedelec riders.
When examining the causes of accidents, 66.5% of the 95,794 accidents involving personal injury included a second participant. In nearly 70% of cases, this second participant was a driver.
Accidents involving only the cyclist were the exception, making up just under a third (31.1%) of all accidents with personal injury. However, when there was another vehicle involved, cyclists were cited as responsible in almost three out of ten accidents. Responsibility varied depending on the other party: cyclists were most often assigned primary fault in accidents involving pedestrians (58.1%). They were responsible in half of the collisions involving motorized tricycles (54.7%). If a car was involved, cyclists were responsible in 25.3% of cases. The proportion was lowest when collisions occurred involving goods vehicles, where only 21.4% of the time was the cyclist held primarily responsible.
Finally, the report detailed specific collision types. In 2025, there were 1,038 accidents involving one pedestrian and one pedelec rider. There were an additional 3,399 accidents involving one pedestrian and one cyclist on a non-motorized bicycle. In the pedelec collisions, injuries tended to be more severe; for every 100 recorded accidents, there were, on average, 16 seriously injured and 119 lightly injured, but no deaths. Similarly, for non-motorized bicycled collisions, the statistics showed 0.2 deaths out of every 100 accidents, alongside 14 seriously injured and 110 lightly injured.