Just how many accidents involve left hand drive, foreign registered trucks in the UK? It is now possible to find out the exact figure as the Department for Transport now records the information.So last year some 979 left hand drive overseas heavy goods vehicles were involved in accidents, of which 30 involved a fatality and there were 101 accidents that were classified as fatal and serious. It is clear that a contributory factor is the left hand drive. Right hand driver overseas registered commercial vehicles were only involved in 93 accidents and involved only two fatalities.
That sounds a lot but together there were 11,336 accidents involving UK or foreign trucks of which 386 involved fatalities.
What these figures really show is that overseas drivers must be fitted with the right mirrors or cameras to enable them to safety travel on the UK roads. It would be nice to think that our Government could pass laws forcing left hand drive vehicles to have mirrors or cameras to cover blind spots and reduce the nearly 1,000 accidents a year involving left hand trucks. I fear, however, that the EU would ban any unilateral action as it could be seen as discriminating against overseas vehicles.