More than 30,000 vehicle accidents a year are being caused by drivers' 'failure to look properly', according to data from a new Freedom of Information request from the Department for Transport (DfT). As part of their process, the Police can record up to six separate contributory factors from a list of 77 for each incident to explain why they feel the crash had occurred, and must then highlight the two primary reasons. Analysis taken from the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) found that 'failure to look properly' and 'failure to judge another person's path or speed' were the two most common reasons cited and these reasons combined were responsible for nearly 13,300 different accidents: seven per cent of the total reported. The other major reasons given were 'carelessness or recklessness' and 'judged to be in a hurry', both of which totalled five per cent, or 9,132 accidents. The third most common combination was 'failure to judge another driver's path or speed' and 'carelessness or recklessness' or the driver 'judged to be in a hurry', which accounted for 4,339 accidents (two per cent of the total). The top 20 combinations of reasons totalled over 200,074 accidents. Sarah Sillars, chief executive officer, IAM, said: 'These figures show conclusively that simple human errors continue to cause the majority of accidents. Drivers cannot blame something or someone else for a collision happening, it is down to every one of us to make a difference. 'We feel that many people eventually get complacent behind the wheel and inattention creeps in.æCombine this with fatigue and distractions, inside and outside the vehicle and the message is clear that drivers must apply their full attention to driving _ you simply cannot do two things at once if one of them is driving. 'We have consistently advocated that continuous assessment is one of the main ways to ensure no driver gets into bad behaviours that cannot then be rectified.î The DfT recently published the latest road accident statistics for Britain, showing that casualties have risen for the first time in 18 years.æ There was a four per cent increase in reported road deaths between 2013 and 2014.
