Motorways: Accidents
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the provision of central reservation barriers on the National Highways motorway and trunk road network, how many crossover accidents, where vehicles have breached the central reservation, occurred in 2024 and 2025 on sections equipped with a) steel barriers, and b) rigid concrete barriers; and what is the total length and number of assets of life expired steel central reservation barrier on that network that require replacement.
Answered by Simon Lightwood
Data on road traffic casualties on the roads in Great Britain is collected via the STATS19 process. The most recently available STATS19 dataset is for 2024 and was published by DfT in September 2025:
https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/cb7ae6f0-4be6-4935-9277-47e5ce24a11f/road-safety-data.
STATS19 does not record the barrier type and so it is not possible to ascertain the answers to points (a) and (b).
Based on the available asset data, there are approximately 10,400km of vehicle restraint barriers on the Strategic Road Network (SRN) operated by National Highways, which is made up of barriers in the central reservation and verges. This comprises 9,300km of steel barrier, 870km of concrete barrier and 230km of wire barrier.
1% (equivalent to approximately 100km of barrier) is categorised as the worst condition banding (i.e 'severely corroded / unserviceable / at end of life'). National Highways prioritises for intervention those assets in the worst condition and barriers in higher risk locations, such as the central reservation.
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