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Dept for Transport

Answer

Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many accidents involving lorries occurred during overtaking manoeuvres in each of the last 10 years; and how many of these involved lorries fitted with speed limiters. [187406] Mr. Jamieson: The number of accidents occurring during overtaking manoeuvres involving HGVs on motorways for the last 10 years is set out as follows: Accidents _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Fatal Serious Slight All 1994 6 34 236 276 1995 9 25 214 248 1996 7 38 233 278 1997 7 37 255 299 1998 9 29 259 297 1999 7 40 280 327 2000 11 38 338 387 2001 7 28 291 326 2002 5 35 298 338 2003 8 42 305 355 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Although it has been a requirement to fit speed limiters to vehicles over 7.5 tonnes since 1992, we have only been recording HGVs over 7.5 tonnes on our database as a separate category of vehicles since 1999. All of the accidents from 1999 onwards quoted above involved HGVs fitted with a speed limiter. The rise in the number of accidents involving HGVs can largely be attributed to the increase in traffic-- indeed, the number of accidents involving all categories of vehicle has increased over the last 10 years. However, the accident rate per vehicle kilometres has changed little during the same time period and, in the case of HGVs, the accident rate per vehicle kilometres has actually fallen quite substantially since the introduction of speed limiters (a decrease of 34 per cent. between 1991 and 2002).

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

424 c1247-8W;424 c1255-6W; 187406

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Accidents Driving Large goods vehicles Road traffic Speed limits Speed governors

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk