§ Helen JacksonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what percentage of emergency police call-outs in the last 12 months for which figures are available were to road traffic accidents, broken down by police authority; and what estimate he has made of the saving to police authorities which a(a) 5 per cent., (b) 10 per cent. and (c) 20 per cent. reduction in road traffic accidents represents. [37462]
§ Mr. Denham[holding answer 26 February 2002]: In 2000–01 there were 668,549 calls to the police in England and Wales that related to road traffic crashes. These accounted for 3.8 per cent. of the total number of nearly 17.5 millions calls. Data are not available by police force area, and there is no central record of the number of traffic incidents attended by the police as the result of calls or of how many police attended on any occasion.
The latest information on the value of road accident prevention is given in "Highways Economics Note No 1", published by the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, in October 2001. This estimates that the total reduction in police costs if all road traffic accidents in 2000 could have been prevented would have been approximately £30 million.