'Safest vehicles' are the lorries
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ENVIRONMENTALISTS attacking heavy lorries as one of the main sources of danger on the roads have been told to get their facts right.
At the annual spring conference of the Scottish Road Haulage Association, held in Peebles, secretary of Transport Action Scotland, Ian Brown, gave details of a newly completed study into road accidents which showed traffic is getting safer and heavy lorries are the safest vehicles on the road.
"Our analysis shows that on average, 162 road accidents occur for every 100 million vehicle kilometres of road traffic," he said.
"Within this average there is considerable variation among the different types of vehicles, but the heavy lorry is by far the safest."
Mr Brown said a motorcycle on average, would travel only 52,000 miles before being involved in an accident, whereas a heavy lorry would travel 652,000 miles.
Commenting on growing environmental opposition to new roads and heavy lorries, Mr Brown said objectors frequently argued heavy lorries cause most accidents and that motorways maim and kill.
Such statements did not stand up to any sort of examination, he claimed.
The most dangerous roads are urban roads, with an acci dent rate more than eight times as high as motorways, he said. "Many such roads carry far more traffic than they were designed to cater for, and junctions in particular tend to • be overloaded."
One of the most alarming aspects of accidents is the cost to the community — in 1975 the loss in output, damage to property, police and medical costs amounted to £816million, he said.