Question reference: S1W-01906
- Asked by: Brian Adam, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 7 October 1999
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Current status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 10 December 1999
Question
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to introduce a safety campaign to highlight the danger of over-filling diesel tanks, given that diesel and oil spills on roads have led to a number of fatalities on roads in the North East this year.
Answer
Data on injury road accidents are recorded by the police on statistical returns to the Scottish Executive which provide details of the circumstances of an accident, together with information about each vehicle involved and each person injured in the accident. The results of these returns are published annually in Road Accidents Scotland, copies of which are available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre. Information about contamination of the road surface by oil or diesel was added to the accident report form this year, and so is not shown in the current edition of Road Accidents Scotland.
The returns received for the first nine months of 1999 show that there were three injury accidents, one of which was fatal, in the Grampian Police area in which oil or diesel was reported as being present on the road. This represents 0.4% of injury accidents in the area over the same period; and the data do not indicate whether the fuel spills caused the accidents.In the absence of data linking diesel and oil spills to road accidents, and given the low incidence of accidents at which oil or diesel are reported as being present on the road, the Scottish Executive has no plans to change the present targets of its road safety campaign. This concentrates on drink driving and speeding, known major causes of fatalities and serious injuries.