Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many road accidents in the last three years have been caused, in whole or in part, by vehicles hitting badgers; and how many such accidents have resulted in (1) deaths, and (2) serious injuries.

The Department does not hold information on what kind of animal is involved in road accidents.

The closest data we hold on this is the number of reported road accidents where ‘animal in carriageway’ is recorded as a carriageway hazard. This covers all animals (except ridden horses). This data is available by accident severity in Great Britain in 2015 to 2017 and is shown in the following table.

Please note that the number of serious accidents provided is as reported by the police. Since 2016, changes in severity reporting systems for a large number of police forces mean that serious injury figures, and to a lesser extent slight injuries, are not comparable with earlier years.