M8 on Eastbound Carriageway: fatal incident report: EIR release

FOI reference: FOI/18/00670
Date received: 1 March 2018
Date responded: 5 April 2018

Information requested

'I would like a copy of the report into the investigation that Transport Scotland said would be undertaken following a fatal RTA on the M8 in 2009, as stated in this news report:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7844476.stm

Could you also clarify if the Health and Safety Executive were involved in any capacity.'

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

In response to your request, please see attached Annex A which the Fatal Incident Preliminary Report. An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998. This exception is not subject to the 'public interest test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.

Exception 10(5)(a) of the EIRs (prejudice to international relations, defence, national security or public safety) has also been applied to some of the information you have requested. This exception applies because disclosure of this information would, or would be likely to endanger the physical or mental health or safety of an individual.

Our new 4th generation of maintenance contract for the south-west commenced in 2013 additional winter service responsibilities on the Operating Company. This includes the provision of winter service patrols. You can view the contract from the link provided below;

https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/35900/sw-combi.pdf

Winter Patrols are in addition to precautionary treatments undertaken on all trunk roads. Winter Patrols are deployed to monitor conditions, provide salt treatments and plough as required. Winter Patrols operate on the busiest roads (Category A) and those trunk roads that experience the severest winter weather (Category B) when temperatures are forecast to be low and there is a risk of ice forming. Patrols operate from early morning through to the end of the morning peak period and at other times of the day when severe wintry weather is forecast. The M8 is a Category A patrol route.

In addition, our Operating Companies have winter control rooms that operate 24/7 and constantly review conditions and deploy necessary resources.

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FOI-18-00670 - Annex A - fatal incident report.pdf

File type

25 page PDF

File size

859.9 kB