§ Mr. Fryasked the Secretary of State for Transport how many motorway and trunk road cross-over accidents have occurred in the past five years involving the rupture or crossing of safety barriers; and what form of construction was used for those road barriers.
§ Mr. Peter BottomleyThe most recent figures available are given in the table.
Year Motorways 'A' Road Dual Carriageways* 1980 28 32 1981 38 26 1982 21 43 1983 40 52 1984 29 56 * Includes both trunk and non-trunk roads, because separate statistics are not collected for these categories of roads. National statistics on the types of barriers involved in cross-over accidents are not collected. For motorways the barrier would almost certainly have been a steel safety fence or either the tensioned corrugated beam or 658W untensioned open box beam type, as these designs are used most widely. For dual carriageways it is reasonable to assume that in most cases the barriers would have been of the types mentioned above.