Transport minister Stephen Ladyman has played down the significance of foreign trucks in side-swiping. "A significant number of side-swiping accidents are caused by British vehicles," he says.
DfT statistics show that there were 443 such accidents in 2005 involving foreign trucks compared with 696 involving UK trucks - but there are 35 times as many UK trucks as foreign ones in the UK.
Ladyman says that close-proximity mirrors will only partly overcome the problem.