Leasedrive Velo Blog

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

The daughter of a friend of mine has just been involved in her second DVC within less than 12 months. DVC I hear you ask? Deer-Vehicle Collisions. They are on the rise, as is the UK deer population. Latest population estimates range between 1.5 and 2 million – that’s the highest number for over a 1000 years!

In both instances my friend’s daughter was lucky. She got away with minor front end damage but it could have been far worse. The first involved a comparatively small deer in broad daylight, the second involved a huge stag in the wee small hours. The mechanic at the garage to which she has taken her car for repair said he was involved in three DVCs in one year alone.

According to the Deer Initiative, road traffic accidents involving deer represent a major and under-recognised problem in the UK. Working on behalf of the Highways Agency, the Deer Initiative has been trying to collect data on RTAs, recording some 30,500 DVCs in the UK between January 2000 and December 2005, 24,500 RTAs being recorded in England alone.

I didn’t even know that a deer vehicle incident reporting website existed but there is one at DeerCollisions.co.uk. As you can imagine, the figures above are only the tip of the iceberg.

Even the Deer Initiative recognises it is only gathering information on a small proportion of deer-vehicle related incidents, probably only about 20% in their estimation.

Concentration of DVCs are at their highest not in Scotland but in South East England with the most continuous distribution of DVCs recorded there as well as by far the highest reported frequencies.

There are apparently six types of deer in the UK, the most popular being the Roe Deer with an estimated population of over 800,000 followed by the Red Deer who number over 350,000. The latter are more likely to be involved in a DVC between October and January while DVCs for Roe Deer occur highest in May, double any other month. So a Roe Deer it probably was in this latest incident.

In terms of times of day, the highest incidence of DVCs takes place between 6pm and midnight with the second highest peak occurring between 6am and 9am when we are commuting to work.

In the period covered there were 20 fatalities, 134 serious injuries and 635 minor injuries. Latest figures suggest an average of 10 people a year are killed by DVCs in the UK.

The insurance cost estimates equate to over £17m per year with around 11,000 cars involved not to mention trucks and buses.

The chances of you or I being involved in a DVC may be as high as one in eight, especially for those of us living in South East England. It does make you think, especially when a deer could end up in your lap if you are very unfortunate and it comes through the windscreen.

Farmers are already calling for the culling of deer to increase. Currently around 350,000 are shot each year but they would like to see this figure rise to at least 400,000 because of the damage to fields and crops. Given the risks to drivers, especially those living in South East England where both traffic and deer volumes are highest, greater driver education of the risks involved together with deer population management in the identified hot spots would appear to be the order of the day. Venison may also become the menu of the day.

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

For the past fortnight, ever since the Daily Telegraph broke the ‘Expensesgate’ story, I have been fit to be tied, as has half the nation judging by comments in the media. Even one lady MP acknowledged the mood of the general public was that they wanted to see culpable MPs strung up from the nearest street lamppost! Prime Minister Gordon Brown today has stated that any Labour MP found to have abused the expenses’ system would be suspended and de-selected before the next general election. Expect to see many new faces at the ballot box next time around!

I always knew the majority of MPs were full of horse***t and one seems to have taken my thinking literally. Conservative MP David Heathcoat-Amory claimed for multiple bags of horse manure compost! Indeed, the claims ranged from the bizarre – John Reid’s £1.50 for an ice cube tray to Tory landowner Douglas Hogg claiming £2200 for dredging his moat. He should be dunked in it!

I could write at length about all the dishonest claims that have come to the surface (indeed I did so some 18 months ago about a lady MP who claimed over 50,000 business miles in a year – we never got a proper explanation even on that one!), and surely more will come to light over the coming weeks and months, but I thought it would be an interesting exercise to weed out all the culprits who have been responsible for our transport shambles.

Starting with that headless chicken, Geoff Hoon, the current secretary of state for transport, has been feathering his nest by building up a very nice £1.7 million property portfolio while claimed taxpayer-funded expenses for at least two. Those struggling with their mortgage payments, who have had their properties repossessed and the homeless will surely be fighting over each other to string him up!

Former secretary of state for transport Ruth Kelly has claimed in excess of £31,000 to re-decorate and furnish her designated second home over the past five years. I can see another rush to her front door!

Her immediate predecessor, Douglas Alexander himself spent thirty grand doing up his constituency home only to see it all go up in flames in a house fire. Oh, ye gods, you were watching after all!

Meanwhile, Alistair Darling, a former secretary of state for transport for four years, had his stamp duty kindly paid for by you and me.

Stephen Byers claimed over £125,000 of expenses for repairs and maintenance on a London flat owned outright by his partner, where he continues to live free!

Besides the afore-mentioned ice cube tray, John Reid, a former minister of state for transport claimed for slotted spoons, an ironing board and, wait for it, a “glittery” loo seat!

Rounding off toilet claims, John Prescott, former secretary of state for the environment, transport and the regions claimed for two loo seats in two years. Obviously, they couldn’t take the weight. Maybe “Two Jags” Prescott should be renamed “Two Bog Seats” Prescott!

I sincerely do hope that the Metropolitan Police will find some grounds to prosecute some MPs for taking us all for a ride.

Investigations into MPs’ claims should go back six years, not four as requested by the Prime Minister. After all, if you and I can be investigated by HMRC, going back six years into our tax affairs, they can be subjected to the same length of scrutiny. The guilty ones should be made to pay back with interest and the book thrown at them with the real transgressors facing maximum prison sentences.

Will we awake to a new dawn at the next General Election? I sincerely hope so.

Hot on the heels of the news that potholes have increased by a third in the past year, comes news that we might not see them before we crash down them with increased regularity.

Autoglass is warning fleets to expect more windscreen damage this year as the vibration resulting from the jolt can lead to windscreen chips developing into cracks. Sounds a bit like what’s happening to local councils and Government. Both seem on the point of imploding fast.

Earlier in the year, Warranty Direct had advised a 13% increase in pothole-related suspension and axle damage. Then at the end of April came news from the Asphalt Industry Alliance that the average road now has a black hole every 120 yards!

English councils filled an average 5252 holes each last year, well over the 4,000 John Lennon sang about that were suffered by Blackburn motorists in ‘A day in the life’ back in ’67. On top of that, there were an average 13,212 utility trenches dug in each authority, many leading to irregular road surfaces and further potholes.

Due to an £8.5bn shortfall in funding, it will apparently take nearly 13 years to get all the current holes filled up! That’s assuming not a single one appears in the meantime! The Welsh will wait a further 2.6 years to realise the same dream.

Interestingly, it costs almost the same to repair a windscreen chip as it does a pothole, the average repair bills being respectively £63 and £65!

According to the AIA, it would cost each local authority £47m to get rid of all the black holes in their ‘patch’. I know that some councils pay more in claims resulting from pothole-related damage and injuries than they do in filling the bloody things up.

Government creams a massive £46bn from road tax and yet only invests 20% of that sum back into road network development and maintenance. The remaining 80% disappears into another black hole!

Before we rapidly descend into becoming a third world economy, based on road surface standards, Government should kick-start our economy as Obama is doing in the States by investing in our road network and creating more jobs as a result.

The state of our roads is truly scandalous, the worst in Western Europe. The development and maintenance of a national road network is an essential part of the famous integrated transport policy we are still waiting from this government. Like the pothole repairs, we are destined to wait a long time too for such a policy.