§ Mr. David NicholsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the number of road accidents causing one or more fatalities in which vehicles carrying inflammable liquids were involved for each year since 1985, giving the total number of dead and injured for each year.
§ Mr. ChopeI regret that I am unable to do this.
The Department collects information only on road accidents involving personal injury. The standard report 567W form, STATS19, completed by the police for these accidents does not include information on cargoes carried by the vehicles involved.
§ Mr. PawseyTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport what are the accident rates for equivalent lengths of contraflow for each of the past three years.
§ Mr. ChopeThe information is not available in the form requested. Detailed studies into the safety of major motorway roadworks were carried out by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory on schemes carried out in 1982 and 1987. The studies concluded that rates were about 0.18 personal injury accidents per million vehicle kilometres or nearly 1.6 times the rate on motorways without roadworks, but even so only about a sixth of the rate on built-up A-class roads. Rates were found to be higher than the average in the contraflow section itself, slightly higher at the approach and lower beyond. A new study of safety at contraflows on all-purpose dual carriageways has begun and will report in December 1992. The TRRL will also be updating its earlier motorway studies.