The cluster of casualties in central London highlights problems with the current reporting of collisions - vehicles are put in to categories which do not adequately describe their purpose. In this instance it's likely most or all of these 'agricultural vehicles' were in fact diggers and other construction vehicles lumped in to the same category (details here).
This is in addition to the 'other' vehicle category which encompasses many of the most dangerous construction vehicles and a plethora of other vehicles, masking the large number of deaths caused by a these vehicles. We also know from insurers that the construction industry has a poor record when it comes to vans and small lorries.
It's been clear for a long time that the construction industry has a problem when it comes to road safety, unfortunately the data collected hides the extent of the problem. In order to understand the real causes of road danger we need better data to be made available, including detailed vehicle types and maybe also the industry sector.
Pedestrians and cyclists killed or injured in collisions involving agricultural vehicles (2005-2015): fatal - black, serious - yellow, slight - blue.
Notes:
- If you want the full details of specific a specific incident, or to search by area, try www.cyclestreets.net/collisions/.
- Where possible casualty records have been linked to the vehicle which hit them. For pedestrians, the data records which vehicle (first) hit them. For other road users we inferred a collision where there was just one other vehicle involved. When there were more vehicles it was not possible to infer which vehicles collided with which.
- Care has been taken to avoid errors or emissions while creating these maps, however if you spot an issue please let us know.
