14

In an interview with Autonomy, Volta Trucks founder, Carl-Magnus Norden, said:

in London trucks constituted only 4% of road miles but 26% of pedestrian fatalities and 78% of cyclist fatalities.

I've seen this claim only in ads (including the above article that appears to be a promotion).

Is this true? Is it 'universal' or limited to London?

Improve this question
2
  • 2
    What do you include under "truck"? Lorries? Pickups? "White vans"? SUVs?
    – TimRias
    Sep 12 at 9:59
  • 3
    @TimRias: It isn't the OP's definition that is relevant, it is Norden's. I am guessing he means LGVs/HGVs because that seems to be what the statisticians use.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Sep 13 at 13:37

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
13

We can easily find this data for the UK as a whole.

  • In 2022, trucks (which we take to be Heavy Goods Vehicles [HGVs]) accounted for 17.4 billion of the 323.8 billion vehicle miles traveled, which is 5.4% (source).
  • Between 2016 and 2021, collisions with single HGVs accounted for 89 of 654 cyclist fatalities, which is 13.6% (source).
  • Between 2016 and 2021, collisions with single HGVs accounted for 277 of 2551 pedestrian fatalities, which is 10.9% (source).

This is less extreme than the quoted numbers for London, but still shows a similar trend where HGVs are relatively over represented in fatal collisions with bikes and pedestrians.This gives any idea of how "universal" this pattern is.

Improve this answer
3
  • Do trucks cause more than proportional number of deaths per ton of goods transported over a mile? If you banned all large trucks and used many small ones to transport the same goods, would that be fewer or more deaths?
    – gnasher729
    Sep 19 at 6:42
  • @gnasher729 That is a different question.
    – TimRias
    Sep 19 at 8:52
  • @gnasher729 This is a pointless comparison, the groups being compared here are: pedestrians, cyclist, regular cars and trucks. Of these trucks are the only ones that are transporting goods. Trains and airplanes produce a lot less pedestrian or cyclist fatal accidents but they are not going on roads.
    – quarague
    14 hours ago

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .