§ Sir R. Russellasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many personal injury accidents on motorways in 1971 and 1972, respectively, were precided by one vehicle sustaining a burst tyre; in how many of these only one 179W vehicle was involved; if steps were taken to discover the reasons for the bursts; and what prosecutions followed.
§ Mr. PeytonThe information is not available in the form requested but research carried out by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory, covering the years 1968 to 1970, indicates that about 1 in 6 of all personal injury accidents on motorways is preceded by tyre failure in one of the vehicles involved. (Net 80 per cent. of the accidents preceded by a burst tyre involved only a single vehicle.
No information is available about prosecutions following this type of motorway accident, but there were 99.210 prosecutions for defective tyres on all types of road in England and Wales in 1971.