Eastern Europeans 'cause 15 per cent of fatal accidents on rural roads'

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Immigrants from Eastern Europe are responsible for nearly 15 per cent of fatal crashes on rural roads, it has been revealed.

Concerns are so great over the massive rise in accidents that young Polish men will now be classified as one of the three most-at-risk groups on the road in Yorkshire - and local authorities across the UK could follow their example.

The figures have been released by North Yorkshire Council, after officers became increasingly concerned with anecdotal evidence suggesting immigrants were putting lives at risk.

Previously, there had been no figures available for the proportion of road accidents caused by immigrants, with data only charting drivers' current place of residence and not ethnicity or place of birth.

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This car crash in Bristol last year left a Polish woman fighting for her life, and four others injured. Two Polish men were arrested on suspicion of drink driving

But council staff went through all data on crashes for the last year and found out the place of birth of each person responsible. They discovered that 14 per cent of all fatal road accidents in the region were caused by Eastern European immigrants.

Councillors have warned that the situation is only likely to get worse as the region's economy becomes more reliant on migrant labour.

John Fort, executive member for community safety, said: "We've noticed there's becoming quite a serious problem with immigrant drivers from Eastern Europe.

"The majority of Eastern Europeans involved are 16 to 24-year-olds, who tend to be production workers and speak little English. These are people who need cars to get from A to B on our rural road network, where there are not many buses.

"They tend to pile a lot of people into one car, drive too fast, go round roundabouts the wrong way and often indulge in drink-driving.

"As a group, there is a distinct lack of common sense and we as a county council have decided that we will make a real effort to get to the bottom of the problem."

He added that the 14 per cent figure for immigrants was nearly as many as they got for motorcyclists - who had long been an at-risk group in the region.

The council's statistics showed that in 2005, the most recent figures available, 85 people were killed on the region's roads.

In June, a Polish driver crashed and died at Leeming, while that same weekend, a three-year-old girl and her 21-year-old Slovakian nanny died after a crash near Thirsk.

Last December, a Polish lorry driver was arrested after a crash closed the A1, one of the county's busiest roads, in both directions for more than six hours. His lorry had collided with a van after he attemped to turn into the southbound carriageway.

Mr Fort said that North Yorkshire was leading the way in tackling the issue. He said that while the migrant community was growing faster in the area than in most other places, their approach could be rolled out across Britain if it proved to be successful.

He added: "We're making a concerted effort to get to the nub of the problem. It's becoming more and more important because we're getting more and more immigrant workers."

The findings came after the TTC Group, the country's largest provider of court-referred drink rehabilitation schemes, said 11 per cent of attendees were now from Eastern Europe - up from under three per cent a year ago.

And last month, the Motor Insurers' Bureau, which handles claims from crashes caused by uninsured drivers, said that the number of claims against Polish drivers had more than tripled in the past two years.

Eastern Europeans taking part in roadside breath tests are also twice as likely as the average drink driver to be serious offenders who have at least two-and-a-half times the legal alcohol limit in their systems.

In spite of alcohol limits being lower in Poland than in Britain, tests are sporadic and roads tend to be straight and wide, making drink-driving there common.

In Poland, people also insure themselves against accidents rather than their cars, so they come to Britain with the impression they are insured for damage if they crash here - which they are not.

A spokeswoman for the Humberside Safety Camera partnership - responsible for casualty reduction - said it would study the North Yorkshire statistics closely and consider compiling similar research in its area.

 

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