According to state news broadcaster Orf, the body of a 35-year-old man was found in a light truck in the parking area on the A12 near Inzing on Sunday morning.
The man was found with stab wounds to his upper body and a 36-year-old driver has been arrested in connection with the murder.
Both the victim and the suspect are from Poland. Citing a police source, Orf said they men are “likely to be two drivers of small trucks who met in the parking area on Saturday”.
The report adds that according to the police, “alcohol may have been consumed in the evening and night hours”.
Since then, the police have released more information. In a report published by meinbezirk.at this morning, the police confirmed that the suspect had admitted to the stabbing.
The 36-year-old driver said that he and his 35-year-old fellow driver had both been drinking heavily before they got into an argument. The 36-year-old claimed that he has hit by the other driver, and responded by stabbing the man several times. He then retired to his cab and fell asleep while the other driver has left to die in his cabin.
The suspect did not specify the reason the argument broke out.
It is said that the evidence from the autopsy conducted by the authorities corresponded with the course of events described above.
Serious rest stop incidents in Europe that have occured between lorry drivers since May 2021
| Where and when | What happened |
| Germany, May 2021 | A lorry driver from Ukraine was stabbed after a fight broke out between himself and his drunk compatriot. Fortunately, two other truckers, also Ukrainians, came to the man’s defence and the injuries he received were not life threatening. |
| Austria, May 2021 | Two lorry drivers were arrested after injuring each other during an ugly fight at a Tyrol rest area that escalated to the point a hammer and a knife were used. |
| Denmark, October 2021 | An argument between drivers from Russia and Ukraine at a lorry park led to one driver being stabbed in the chest and had to be taken to accident and emergency. |
| England, October 2021 | A lorry driver died after ’an altercation’ at a lorry park in England near Felixstowe port. Admittedly, at the time the original report surfaced, the cause of death was unknown. Therefore it isn’t certain that the so-called altercation was the direct cause. |
| Austria, December 2021 | A fight took place among drivers from Ukraine who had been drinking heavily. A kitchen knife was used and two of the truckers had to be taken to hospital for treatment of “big cuts”. According to reports in the Austrian press, the fight broke out in a rest area in Angath near the border with Germany. |
| Germany, December 2021 | A lorry driver was killed at the Lehrte restop near Hanover after being run over in the aftermath of a heated argument with a colleague. The police nonetheless believed that it was not the intention of the driver, who had smelled of alcohol, to run over his colleague. |
| Austria, January 2022 | A Romanian driver was strangled and threatened with a knife by his colleague and fellow-countryman while the duo were spending their rest time at a parking area on the A2 motorway by the Ilz junction. |
| Germany, March 2022 | A fight between two lorry drivers escalates as one stabs the other on multiple occasions, leaving the victim with serious injuries. |
| Germany, April 2022 | At a rest area on the A45 near Hanau, a lorry driver stabbed another truck driver, causing the latter to be hospitalised. Both had been drinking beforehand. |
| Germany, April 2022 | A lorry driver who was under the influence of alcohol stabbed another several times after an argument escalated into a violent fight. The attacker tried to flee in his vehicle but was prevented from doing so by other truckers, who blocked the exit of the rest area near Würzburg. |
| Germany, April 2022 | Two lorry drivers agreed to a fist fight, only for one to later pull a knife on the other. The incident occured by the A8 near Nellingen. |
| England, May 2022 | A fight breaks out at a cafe at Ashford International truckstop during which one lorry driver attacked two others with a knife. The attacker was handed an 11.5-year prison sentence in December of the same year. |
| Italy, June 2022 | An argument between two drivers about how much alcohol they had consumed escalated, resulting in one stabbing the other. |
| Germany, August 2022 | An argument between a Ukrainian and Belarusian driver leads to a serious fight that sees both drivers held in custody by the police. |
| Germany, October 2022 | A 50-year-old truck driver stabs one of his colleagues at a motorway service area near Munich. |
| Germany, November 2022 | A quarrel between drivers from Ukraine and Russia, which concerned the former playing music loudly in his cab, escalated to the point a knife and hammer used. Both men had been drinking beforehand at “Goldene Bremm” rest area near Saarbrücken. |
| Germany, November 2022 | A drunk truck driver rioted at a rest area on the B 49 near Merenberg in the Limburg-Weilburg district, kicking and hitting trucks. |
| Germany, December 2022 | An argument sees a lorry driver lash out at a fellow driver on Christmas Eve in a lorry park on the outskirts of Rheda-Wiedenbrück, causing the victim “not insignificant injuries”. |
| Belgium, January 2023 | A lorry driver from the Netherlands has had to have his leg amputated following an incident at a lorry park on the Belgium-France border. |
| Germany, January 2023 | A drunk lorry driver who had crashed into another truck exited his cab and threw punches at a driver who had photographed his licence plate. |
| Germany, January 2023 | A lorry driver injures a fellow driver at a rest area after crashing into several other lorries while allegedly driving under the influence. The incident occured at the Steingrund motorway car park between Frankfurt and Darmstadt on Saturday, January 28th. |
| Austria, May 2023 | A light lorry driver was found stabbed at a Tyrol rest area, while a fellow driver was arrested in connection with the murder. Police suspected that both men had been drinking beforehand. |