Reported accidents on the A74 motorway: EIR release

Information requested

I am looking for the following information relative to the past 5 years:

1.  Number of multi-vehicle reported accidents on the A74(M) Motorway;
2.  Number of single-vehicle reported accidents on the A74(M) Motorway;
3.  Number of reported accidents involving a vehicle or vehicles on the A74(m) southbound in the area of Greenhillstairs, Moffat
4.  The number of cases in respect of (1) to (3) which resulted in a prosecution or fixed penalty for a contravention of section 3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (careless driving)

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.

I have kept your numbering for ease of reference

1. and 2.  The table below shows the number of single vehicle and multi vehicle accidents recorded from 2014-2018 on the A74(M).

Year	Single vehicle accidents	Multiple vehicle accidents (involving 2 or more vehicles)
2014	23	47
2015	32	63
2016	29	55
2017	19	52
2018	29	38

Source: Transport Scotland Accident Manager Database

Notes: Statistics for the Strathclyde Division and the Dumfries and Galloway Division of Police Scotland

Date Period: 01/01/2014 - 31/12/2018           

Date Extracted - 18 October 2019

 

3.  The table below shows the number of accidents (single or multiple vehicle) reported on the A74(M) in the area of Greenhillstairs, Moffat (southbound) from the B719 overbridge to the A701 overbridge at Junction 15.

Year	Number of Accidents	Multiple vehicle accidents (involving 2 or more vehicles)
2014	2	47
2015	0	63
2016	2	55
2017	0	52
2018	0	38

Source: Transport Scotland Accident Manager Database

Notes: Statistics for the Dumfries and Galloway Division of Police Scotland

Date Period: 01/01/2014 - 31/12/2018

Date Extracted - 18 October 2019

Please note that the information provided is based on the current figures available. The following are potential reasons for an accident not appearing on our system:

• Transport Scotland only holds accident information which is provided to us by Police Scotland.
• Transport Scotland does not hold information relating to damage only accidents (i.e. not involving an injury).
• Transport Scotland only holds accident information for the trunk road network.
• The accident information Transport Scotland holds is subject to change.  E.g. we receive late returns from Police Scotland, who are responsible for recording details of injury accidents.
• Annual Scottish accident figures are published by Transport Scotland on a yearly basis and can be found by entering Reported Road Casualties Scotland into your search engine.

4.   Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), we are not required to provide information which we do not have.  We do not have the information you have requested because road traffic accident prosecutions are not recorded by us. You may wish to contact Police Scotland at foi@scotland.pnn.police.uk to request this information.

 

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.