This paper addresses crashes involving heavy goods vehicles (HGV) in Europe focusing on long-haul trucks weighing 16 tons or more (16t+). The identification of the most critical scenarios and their characteristics is based on a three-level analysis: general crash statistics from CARE addressing all HGVs, results about 16t+ trucks from national crash databases and a detailed study of in-depth crash data from GIDAS, including a crash causation analysis. Most European HGV crashes occur in clear weather, during daylight, on dry roads, outside city limits, and on non-highway roads. Three main scenarios for 16t+ trucks are characterized in-depth: (1) rear-end crashes in which the truck is the striking partner, (2) conflicts during right turn maneuvers of the truck and a cyclist riding alongside and (3) pedestrians crossing the road in front of the truck. Among truck-related crash causes, information admission failures (e.g. distraction) were the main causing factors in 72% of cases in scenario (1) while information access problems (e.g. blind spots) were present for 72% of cases in scenario (2) and 75% of cases in scenario (3). The results provide both a global overview and sufficient depth of analysis in the most relevant cases and thereby aid safety system development.