Impacts with trees alongside the carriageway (so called “tree crashes”) may still be an area where the number of fatal accidents on our roads could be significantly reduced. The official German statistics have included the attribute “impact with a roadside tree” since 1995. In that year, the proportion of road users killed in such crashes was 24% (2,284 out of 9,454 fatalities). Today, impacts with trees are still one of the most important focal points of road deaths in Germany. For the year 2012, the latest figures show a proportion of 19% (696 out of 3,600 fatalities). Most of these crashes occur on rural roads. In 2012, for crashes on roads outside urban areas (excluding motorways) 2,151 fatalities were reported and 28% of them (595 fatalities) related to impacts with trees. It is estimated that this may not be a problem only in Germany but also in other European countries. With the aim of launching international research into this topic an additional study was conducted on tree-impacts in Austria and Germany. This paper reports on some of the analyses and results. It seems that in Austria the problem of “tree impacts” is not as predominant as in Germany.