Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what proportion of motorcycle road injuries involved drivers and riders who acted unlawfully with respect to using the road in each of the last three years; and if he will make a statement.

The Department does not hold information on whether drivers or riders involved in reported road accidents acted unlawfully. The closest information available in the road casualty data is contributory factors.

Contributory factors provide some insight into why and how road accidents occur. They are designed to give the key actions and failures that led directly to the actual impact to aid investigation of how accidents might be prevented.

When police officers attend the scene of an accident, they are able to select up to six factors they believe contributed to the accident (for each vehicle and casualty involved). Please note that this does not assign blame for the accident to any specific road user, but gives an indication of which factors the attending officer thought contributed to the accident.

The contributory factor data for motorcyclist casualties for the last three years is given in the table attached. Contributory factor statistics presented here are allocated to the drivers, riders or pedestrians involved in accidents where the motorcyclist casualties occurred.