Autocar - First for car news and reviews

The number of crashes on Britain’s roads involving foreign drivers rose for the fifth straight year in 2006, according to figures published by the Motor Insurers Bureau.
It’s claimed that the rise is due to increased numbers of European drivers moving to the UK (270,000 in the last six years). One in seven HGV drivers on the UK’s roads is registered in another EU country.
The MIB statistics show the number of accidents is rising in parallel to the rising number of vehicles on the roads.Read the full article

But no actual figures given. I'm guessing this means the rise is so small that if the figures were given it would be a non-story, or is it just an unfortunate oversight?

NiallOswald:

I'm guessing this means the rise is so small that if the figures were given it would be a non-story, or is it just an unfortunate oversight?

Guess again pal:

"Insurance claims involving foreign EU drivers in the UK have grown every year from 2001 to 2006 according to data from the Motor Insurers Bureau (MIB). Since 2001, collisions involving EU drivers have risen by 61.4% from 11,685 to 18,865."

And that's two years out of date.

If you've got some political agenda to your comment, along the lines of 'immigrants are a boon for UK', spit it out mate.

"The MIB statistics show the number of accidents is rising in parallel to the rising number of vehicles on the roads"

That sounds such an obvious 'parallel' as to make watching paint dry interesting. I suspect the number of elderly accidents is also rising in parallel to the rising age of the population and should we have an outbreak of red headed births accidents rates will increase there too!

loather:

If you've got some political agenda to your comment, along the lines of 'immigrants are a boon for UK', spit it out mate.

 

Not at all - but it's no good publishing an article about a rise in figures without actually giving the figures! A 'rise' could be 0.1% or 1000%, after all.

The figure you've pulled up still isn't especially informative as it doesn't give the percentage of *all* collisions occuring in the UK per year caused by foreign drivers, or the collision rate per kilometre for UK and foreign cars. Without those, how can I know whether 18,000 collisions is significant or a drop in the ocean?

More foreign drivers = more collisions involving foreign drivers (obviously) but the raw numbers are useless without the totals. If there are 61% more foreign drivers on the roads, a 61% increase in accidents involving them is hardly a surprise. On the other hand, if it's 10% increase in drivers resulting in a 61% increase in accidents, there's something significant going on.
 

Niall, don't be obtuse. The figures are at least two years out of date. The UK govt. does not know how many immigrants are in the country. They said in 2004 there would be only 10-20,000 from the new EU accession countries. The actuality is guessed somewhere between 1-2 million. That's apart from non-EU Somalians, Albanians, Iraqis, Pakistani/Indian brides/grooms etc..

You appear as intelligent. Please don't wilfully drive yourself down dead-ends or try to obscure a point with a welter of stats. The point is not 61% or whatever per cent. The point is immigration is massive and purposely uncontrolled. This is of course relected on road usage and accidents; how can it not be?

I believe the true figure of accidents caused by foreigners as far greater as a proportion of total. But as no one knows who is in UK and what their status is, stats are at best misleading or plain worthless.

If you want to assess how the proportion of foreigners is going on UK's roads and accidents caused by them bear in mind up to 1 in 4 of all births in UK now are to foreigners. And of course this too will be a statistical under-estimate. Ah, but I'm sure we can rely upon HM Govt. to decree a blanket amnesty to all illegals, their dependants and offspring in the next year or so.

I'm not being obtuse, just questioning the lack of solid numbers here. 

My experience of driving worldwide, from Thailand and Australia to across Europe is quite simply we all drive alike. There's the same %percentage of solid drivers, idiots (who don't use mirrors etc) and near identical faster drivers. I doubt immigration has had but the slightest impact on accident rates. 

JJBoxster:

My experience of driving worldwide, from Thailand and Australia to across Europe is quite simply we all drive alike. There's the same %percentage of solid drivers, idiots (who don't use mirrors etc) and near identical faster drivers. I doubt immigration has had but the slightest impact on accident rates. 

 

How can anyone argue with such genius?

Just humour him.

It's not even worth replying too apart from pointing out the stupidity on display.
 

JJBoxster:

My experience of driving worldwide, from Thailand and Australia to across Europe is quite simply we all drive alike. There's the same %percentage of solid drivers, idiots (who don't use mirrors etc) and near identical faster drivers. I doubt immigration has had but the slightest impact on accident rates. 

I'm sorry but you cannot be right on this.

All of the rest of Europe drive on the right the last time I looked and and we drive on the left.  Foreign vehicles have the wheel on the other side.

Correct me if I am wrong but when you overtake you have to check the blind spot i.e look over your right shoulder.  You and I in your RHD see what is to the right of you.  Johnny Foreigner in his LHD car or more pertinently lorry sees his centre console.  Doesn't matter how many mirrors you have, you cannot beat actually looking and being physically able to see.

The accident rates, particularly involving foreign LHD lorries are well known.

Show me the statistics? The fact the Police are rolling out generalised (ie. meaningless) scare sentances rather than facts and figures suggests they haven't a whole lot of confidence in the statistics proving their case. Scummy can call me "cynical" too if he wants to add another name for me but the poor bloke wouldn't know an accurate discription if it smacked him between the eyes.

My monies on yet another pile of tripe and Scummy keeping up his record for picking the wrong end of the stick and 100% failure rate on every topic on forum.

JJBoxster:

My experience of driving worldwide, from Thailand and Australia to across Europe is quite simply we all drive alike. There's the same %percentage of solid drivers, idiots (who don't use mirrors etc) and near identical faster drivers. I doubt immigration has had but the slightest impact on accident rates. 

 A hugely sweeping generalisation if ever i've read one.