Reversing lorry kills 62-year-old woman and one-year-old in Hausen im Wiesental

The collision in Hausen im Wiesental

Around 11 a.m. on 29 October 2026, a lorry reversed onto a property on the Friedhofweg in Hausen im Wiesental, a small municipality in the Lörrach district of Baden-Württemberg. According to police, the 46-year-old driver was backing up to the plot when his vehicle struck a 62-year-old woman who was pushing a pram and had been standing behind it. The one-year-old child in the pram was hit as well. Both died at the scene, and police said help came too late for each of them. Early reports did not make clear how the two were related, although the Badische Zeitung later described the woman as the child's grandmother.

Open questions in the investigation

Police have not yet established how the collision happened. Press coverage lists several open questions, among them whether the driver overlooked the pair, whether technical warnings were involved, and whether the crash could have been prevented in another way. The 46-year-old was not arrested, but the investigation against him continues. The investigation into the background of the crash is ongoing.

Two more fatal lorry crashes in Südbaden

Two other fatal lorry accidents had occurred in Südbaden on Monday, 26 October. In Weil am Rhein in the Lörrach district, a lorry hit an 86-year-old pedestrian who was crossing the road at a traffic light, according to police. In Waldkirch in the Emmendingen district, a 43-year-old lorry driver reversing in the courtyard of a commercial estate failed to see an 82-year-old pedestrian, who died of her injuries. Together with the Hausen crash, these incidents make three fatal lorry accidents in the region within one week.

The Hausen accident echoes an earlier case at the end of March 2026 in Schramberg (Rottweil district). There a lorry drove over several parked cars and the pavement before hitting a house wall, and a 29-year-old mother and her three-year-old son on the pavement were killed. The 53-year-old driver had presumably lost consciousness at the wheel because of a medical cause, and that investigation was later dropped.

Road deaths and the political response

The Interior Ministry counted 161 road deaths on Baden-Württemberg's roads in the first half of 2026, 14.4% fewer than in the same period a year earlier. Serious injuries also fell by 5.1% to 2,562. The ministry released these figures in August, so they do not cover the crashes of late October. Interior Minister Manuel Hagel (CDU) responded to the figures at the time in these words.

“That is a positive signal, but by no means an all-clear. But every single one is one too many.”

Hagel's remark stood alongside a fall in deaths for the first half of the year, while the late-October crashes in Südbaden show that fatal lorry incidents still happen at short intervals.