Most of the aforementioned incidents follow a disturbingly familiar pattern. Weekend rest stop arguments involving truck drivers from Eastern Europe that escalate into violence following the consumption of alcohol. The only difference on this occasion was that the drivers involved were from a European Union member state.
As reported by Austrian news website krone.at, 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. The incident occured last Saturday night.
According to reports, the younger driver, aged 40, strangled his 55-year-old colleague and pulled out a kitchen knife while issuing a death threat. The elder driver managed to break free, but was kicked in the back as he exited the cab – causing him to fall to the ground and injure his hand.
Having escaped danger, the victim of the attack alerted the police. When the officers arrived at the scene, the suspect was found sleeping in the driver’s cab of his truck in a heavily drunk state.
The 40-year-old driver was subsequently arrested, while the 55-year-old was taken to a hospital for treatment.
Serious rest stop incidents in Europe that have occured between lorry drivers in the last 8 months
| Where and when | Nature of incident |
| 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. |
| 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. |
Photo: User:My Friend, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
